Hand-book for young painters

\t V'''-

Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2015

https://archive.org/details/handbookforyoungOOIesl

HAND-BOOK

FOR

YOUNG PAINTERS

BY CHARLES ROBERT LESLIE, R.A.

AUTHOR OF ' THE LIFE OF CONSTABLE '

' To admire on principle, is the only way to imitate without loss of
originality.' — Coleridge, Biographia Literaria.

THIRD EDITION. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

: LONDON

JOHN Murray; ALBEMARLE street
^887

Printed by R. & R.. Clark, Edinhu

PREFACE

If, from all that has been written on Painting, the
truth could be brought out and presented clear from
every ambiguity of language, the student of the present
day would stand in little need of further guidance to its
true principles. It is not from the want of sound dicta,
or because enough has not been given to the world
in the way of theory and criticism, that something still
remains to be said ; but it is because far too much has
been written ; and because it is the nature of error to
be more prolific than truth ; and because those points
on which the best writers may be mistaken, or what
has more frequently happened, those points on which
they have been mistaken by inferior minds, have gene-
rally become starting-places from which plausible, but
unsound, criticism has spread itself out through all the
avenues of the popular literature of the day.

The Fine Arts are often selected as themes affording
opportunities for the display of eloquence and learning ;
and in apparently profound dissertations accompanied
often with much valuable information, theories are
not unfrequently advanced utterly adverse to the right
progress of Art, — theories the more dangerous for the
talents with which they are advocated ; and from the

iv

PREFACE

peculiar fashions at present dominant in criticism, I
have no hesitation in expressing my conviction that
the thing, just now, most in danger of being neglected
by painters is the Art of Fainting ; and that want of
patronage is far less to be dreaded than the want of
that which patronage should foster.

The road to Art is proverbially a long one ; and it
is often made longer than it need be, not only by the
causes I have mentioned, but by our own mistakes.
If, therefore, anything I can say should tend to shorten
it to younger artists, it will be in a great measure owing
to discoveries of some of my own errors, — which,
though made too late to be of much benefit to myself,
may possibly be of use to those whose habits are not
so formed but that they may be abandoned, if wrong.

Painting and Poetry, as Sister Arts, have a family
likeness ; but it is the business of each to do what the
other cannot ; and words can no more become substi-
tutes for pictures than lines and colours can supply the
place of Poetry. Hence the difficulty of writing or
speaking of Painting ; indeed the impossibility of de-
scribing those things belonging to it that are most
impressive. Yet Language may do something for Art.
It may direct the student in all that is mechanical and
scientific, and principles of Nature, as far as they are
known, may be explained; and, as we may believe
Ben Jonson, when he tells us, that

" A good poet's made as well as born,"

we may be sure that this is equally true of a good
painter.

Tht great difficulty of instruction will be found in
attempting to analyse the things that are most addressed

PREFACE

V

to the taste and the feelings. Here the teacher must
rely on his own impressions ; impressions liable to be
biassed by a thousand accidental associations, and by
peculiarities of temperament that may well lead him to
mistrust himself ; and he can only be sure that his guid-
ance will be safe to others in as far as he finds his opinions
confirmed by the most generally-received authorities.

If with respect to one most important element of
Art, and that, too, colour, I dissent from so great a
painter as Reynolds, I do but follow Opie, whose
opinion has carried with it that of every succeeding
artist of eminence.

The Lectures I delivered at the Royal Academy
form the greater part of this volume. They have been
carefully revised, and re-cast into other forms, and with
such additional matter as I venture to hope may render
it worthy of the attention, not only of young artists,
but, in some degree, of painters past the period of pupil-
age, and also of that now large and increasing class
of lovers of Art who adorn their houses with pictures.

If I ow^e any apology for what I have said of some
late purchases of pictures for the National Gallery, I
owe it to the public, for not saying more. For the
Trustees of the collection, as noblemen and gentlemen,
I have the greatest respect. But I can have no respect
for their taste (as a body), when they throw away the
public money on worthless pictures. It is clearly not
sufficient that there should be, as there always have
been, among these gentlemen, one or two who know
the difference between good and bad Art, and whose
professional or non-professional acquaintance with the v
works of the great masters enables them to judge of the

vi

PREFACE

value or originality of the pictures that may be offered
to the nation, either as gifts or in the way of purchase ;
for when the pictures to which I have alluded were
added to the Gallery, such gentlemen must have been
absent or out-voted. The abilities required to govern
a country are so far from including the accomplish-
ments necessary to the formation of a fine collection
of works of Art, that it may be safely asserted they are
scarcely compatible ; and the taste and knowledge of
this kind, even of a Pericles or a Lorenzo de Medici,
must always be as nothing compared with the taste
and knowledge of an artist. I may be told that some
of our eminent statesmen of the last generation have
formed fine collections of the old masters ; but such
collections were, in fact, formed for them by the late
Mr. Seguier, and Mr. Smith the elder, of Bond Street.

I have spoken out on this matter, from a sense of
duty to the public, as well as to my professional
brethren, to whom, above all others, it is important
that such an institution as a National Gallery should
be properly managed.

C. R. L.

Dece?nber 1854.

CONTENTS

SECTION I

PAGE

ON THE IMITATION OF NATURE, AND ON STYLE . I

Comparison of Art with Nature — Examination of the
axiom that the most perfect Art is that in which Art is
most concealed — The works of Rubens suggestive of
action, Hogarth's "Enraged Musician " suggestive of
sound — Wax- work, its lifelessness — Deception differs
from illusion — Panoramic and Dioramic Art — Imitation
defined by Coleridge — Painting not an invention — Error
in the reasoning of Lessing — Tableaux vivants — Inferi-
ority of Gerard Dow to Terburg, Metsu, or Jan Steen
— Style — Manner — Mediaeval Art — Chinese Art —
Sameness not always a fault.

SECTION II

ON THE IMITATION OF ART 17

Judgments of young Painters — Apparent present advan-
tages of Study — Real difficulties — Defects in the minds
of different classes of students — Faith in the inexhaust-
ibleness of Nature necessary to Originality — The over-
powering Influence of contemporary Art on students —
Danger of resorting to Exhibitions of Modern Pictures as
to schools — Poets not necessarily judges of Painting —
Mischief done by pretenders to Taste — Statesmen and
Princes rarely judges of Art — Misemployment of

CONTENTS

Michael Angelo by Leo X.— The poetry of Pamting—
Tlie Cephalus and Aurora" of Poussin— Tintoret—
Poussin's Polyphemus" — Importance of Technical
Excellence— MisappHcation of the word Sensual — Re-
marks of Lord Lindsay— Fra Angelico— Heads of
Angels by Reynolds — Quotation from Dr. Waagen —
The Expression of Hogarth aided by his Colour— Pur-
chases of worthless Pictures by the Trustees of the
National Galleiy — Francia compared with Correggio —
Eclecticism of the greatest Painters — Plagiarism.

SECTION III

ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN LAWS AND RULES . 39

Genius not lawless — The Laws of Art and of Nature
the same — Rules not binding — Debate of the French
Academy on a Picture by P. Veronese — Sterne on Cri-
• ticism — " Last Supper " of Leonardo da Vinci — Watteau
— Dr. Johnson and Miss Burney — Quotation from
Johnson's Preface to Shakspeare — The violation of
Rules in obedience to Laws — How the Prosperity of
Art may be promoted — Instances of Laws — Drawing
School and Amateur Rules.

SECTION IV

ON CLASSIFICATION .

Quotation from Charles Lamb--Sancho Panza's Story
— M. Angelo and Raphael — The Subjective Element —
Vulgarity — Morland not vulgar — Pretension the Essence
of Vulgarity — French Painters of the Eighteenth Cen-
tury—Poussin — Watteau — The Objective Element —
Caravaggio — Rembrandt — Fuseli — Blake — High Art
—Religious Art— The levelling tendency of Classifica-
tion according to Subject — Raphael — Masaccio — Ostade
—Rembrandt— Carlo Dolci— Carlo Maratti, etc.

CONTENTS ix
SECTION V

PAGE

ON SELF-TEACHING 63

Fashion — Opie supposed to be Self-taught — Examina-
tion of this Opinion — Alderman Boydell — His Shak-
speare Gallery — His Patronage of Opie — Northcote's
Slighted Beauty" — Michael Angelo, origin of his
Style — Raphael — Rubens — Sir Joshua Reynolds on
Genius and Industry.

SECTION VI

ON GENIUS, IMAGINATION, AND TASTE . . . 71

Genius a combination of many faculties — Taste — Its
rarity — The superior taste of Raphael — Finish deter-
mined by taste — Velasquez — Terburg — Cold natures,
their tastes — Ardent temperaments — Bad taste — Good
and bad tastes often united — The revivals of Art are '
always with a difference of its character.

SECTION VII

ON THE IDEAL, AND ON BEAUTY OF FORM . . 76

The Ideal not always distinct from matter-of-fact —
The Elgin Horses — Faults in Flaxman's Animals —
The Ideal is the select — It is not the Beautiful only —
Raphael — The Greeks — Angelico — The connection
between Modern and Ancient Art never lost — How the
Antique should be studied — Guido's Aurora" —
Raphael, the Painter of Loveliness — Statue of Thalia —
M. Angelo's Delphic Sibyl — Perfect Human Beauty not
to be found in an Individual, and why ? — Proportions of
the Figure relatively beautiful — Grace, also relative —
Beauty of Old Age — Of Disease— Of Calamity— Of
Death — Lord Byron's Remarks on Death — Cast from
the face of Napoleon — Mistakes made by Artists in
representations of Death.

X

CONTENTS

SECTION VIII

PAGE
88

ON DRAWING ^
All Schools, in which drawing the Figure is taught, be-
gin with the study of the Antique— Reynolds's Sugges-
tion, that Students should paint their Studies— Stothard's
Method— Inequality of Excellence in the Antique-
Earlier and Later Works— Fault in the Attitude of the
Fighting Gladiator "—Drawing from Nature— Flax-
man and Stothard's Practice— The Knowledge of Ana-
tomy may be abused — Mr. Haydon's Theory — His
Autobiography— His Error respecting Raphael —
Fashions among Students — Stothard's Drawings from
the Life.

SECTION IX
ON INVENTION AND EXPRESSION— INSTANCES FROM

THE OLD MASTERS 93

The Powers of Invention and Expression only to be sus-
tained by Observation — Hogarth's Habits — Stothard's
Sketch -Books — Raphael — M. Angelo — Anecdote of
Burns — The Supematiiral not the Unnatural — A
Failure of N. Poussin in the Supernatural — False
Notions of the Natural — Travelling not necessary to a
Knowledge of Human Nature — Creations of the Poet
or the Painter, what they really are — Selection and
Combination the Principles on which Invention works
— Invention and Expression the first things displayed in
Art — The Dark Ages — Giotto — Raphael — His Cartoons
— Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" — Principle of
the Early Painters resembled that of the Naturalisti —
Imitations by Raphael and M. Angelo of some of the
Conceptions in the Campo Santo — Orcagna's "Triumph
of Death "—Early Art checked by the dread of Idolatry
— The Typical System adopted by M. Angelo in the
Sistine Chapel— Raphael's Cartoons — Heads of the
Saviour by Da Vinci and by Raphael — Question as to
the propriety of representing the Divine Nature of

CONTENTS

Christ — The Rehgious Sentiment not less displayed in
Raphael's late works than in his earliest — His Repre-
sentations of Childhood — The Cartoons, the work of
Raphael's own hands — His Sacrifice of the Innocents"
— His Frescoes in the Vatican — The obligations of
Raphael to M. Angelo have been over -stated — M.
Angelo, how greater than Raphael — The Raising of
Lazarus, "by vS. de Piombo — M. Angelo's "Holofernes"
— The " Cartoon of Pisa " — Titian — His Power in Ex-
pression— Allegory — Paul Veronese — Rubens.

SECTION X

ON INVENTION AND EXPRESSION — INSTANCES FROM

THE BRITISH SCHOOL . . . - I20

Hogarth — His adherence to Nature closer than that of
most dramatic writers — His Wit and Humour — Not a
Caricaturist, — His Benevolence — His Art Ideal — His
Treatment of Accessories — His Representations of
Childhood — Vindicated from the charge of prostituting
his Art at the Suggestion of a vicious Patron — His
Failure in Subjects from the Bible — Walpole's Insensi-
bility to his Excellence as a Painter — Exhibition of his
Works in 1814 — Fuseli — His Sin and Death" — The
Satan" of Sir Thomas Lawrence — Fuseli's Chiaroscuro
and Colour — Variety of excellence of the British School
— Stothard — Bewick — Opie — Wilkie — Haydon's Mis-
statements respecting the Royal Academy.

SECTION XI
ON COMPOSITION 155

The natural principles of Composition — The picturesque
Styles — Perspective — Giotto — The Campo Santo — Goz-
zoli — Masaccio's treatment of Background — The Archi-
tecture in Raphael's Cartoons — The "Sacraments"
of Poussin — Comparison between Orcagna's "Last
Judgment" and Raphael's "Dispute of the Sacrament" —

CONTENTS

Symmetry of Composition— Irregularity— Perspective,
some of its principles explained— Hogarth's faults in
Perspective— Titian's Peter Martyr"— His Death
of Abel," and other like compositions— The Serpentine
Line— Hogarth's mistake respecting ^'The Laocoon"—
llis Analysis of Beauty "—The Richness of Hogarth's
Compositions— Their Perspicuity— Drapery— Fashions
in dress— Reynolds— Gainsborough— Hogarth's use of
the dresses of his time.

SECTION XII

ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO ....
Wilkie's Opinion of the importance of Colour— Depre-
ciation of its value by Reynolds — Rubens's Descent
from the Cross" — Colour compared by Reynolds to
Language — P. Veronese — Erroneous estimate of the
Flemish and Dutch Schools — Colour not more a sensual
element of Art than Form — P. Veronese not more gay
in Colour than Raphael — His Imitation of Raphael —
Their aim in Colour the same — Solemnity of the tones
of Titian, Tintoret, and sometimes of P. Veronese —
Venetian and Dutch Colour applicable to the most
sublime subjects — The admission of this by Reynolds —
A taste for Colour always an early development — Vul-
garity in Colour of European manufactures compared
with those of China and Persia — Colour of the early
Italians and the Flemish Painters — The Van Eycks —
Failure of Modern Painters in imitating the early Schools
— Organisation — Entire Schools have coloured well, and
entire Schools have coloured badly — Cause of this —
Raphael inferior in Colour to the best Colourists —
Probable cause — The best Colourists generally those
who have s^ idied Nature only — Students should begin
to paint early — Raphael inferior in Colour only when
compared with such Painters as Titian — N. Poussin —
M. Angelo — Opie's opinion of the best mode of Study
—Recommendation of Reynolds — The Excellence of

CONTENTS

his Drawing — Colour more difficult of acquirement than
Form — Chiaroscuro a late addition to the Art — Its
inseparable Connection with Colour — Reflections —
Shadows on Water — Harmony — Daylight — Queen
Elizabeth misunderstood — West's Theory — On the
treatment of Blue — P. Veronese — Hogarth on the effects
of Time — Tone of Ludovico Caracci — The Pathetic —
wSubjects of wretchedness — Etty — His Art and Personal
Character — Rubens — N. Poussin — On Copying —
Vehicles — Fresco — Picture-cleaning.

SECTION XIII

ON THE COLOUR OF RAPHAEL'S CARTOONS, AND

THEIR PRESERVATION 220

The Drapery of the Saviour in the "Miraculous Draught
of Fishes "faded — Probable difference between Raphael's
choice of Colour and that of Paul Veronese — Late works
of Raphael in the Louvre — History of the Cartoons —
The risk they run of destruction by fire — Suggestions
for their security — Other pictures at Hampton Court.

SECTION XIV

ON THE FLEMISH AND DUTCH PAINTERS OF THE

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 23 1

Quotation from Barry — Rubens — Rembrandt — His
Pupils — G. Dow — N. Maas — ^Jan Steen — Ostade —
Teniers — Terburg — Metsu — De Hooge — Cuyp — Ruys-
dael.

SECTION XV
ON LANDSCAPE 254

The religious and moral influence of Landscape — Mis-
taken Classification — Gainsborough — The Sky — Wilson
— Cozens — Girtin — Turner — Constable — Warmth in
Landscape may be expressed without what are called
Warm Colours — Tropical Landscape.

xiv CONTENTS
SECTION XVI

PAGE

ON PORTRAIT 28 1

Exhibition of the Pictures of Reynolds at the British
Gallery — The greatest Historical Painters always great
in Portrait — Vandyke — Velasquez — Rubens — Titian —
Physiognomy — Holbein — West's Family Picture — Rem-
brandt — Lely — Kneller — Reynolds — Gainsborough —
Lawrence — ^Jackson — Photography.

CONCLUSION 311

Parting advice to young Painters with respect to their
Habits, Modes of Study, etc.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Rembrandt ...... Frontispiece.

The Annunciation To face p. 2%

T A TC'DTTT'A TMTT Qa/^T) AAlir'VT'T'/"*

55

45

T? TTCTTCr'T'T" A T'T/^TST CWt "TTTTT T^T'\rP''c Q/~»"\T

Ivllib U oUl i A i iVJiM KJr 1 rlH. IVlINLrO oUiN

"

T-T ITT f r\T\r\Tt f\ c

IjLJc/JLiUIJUKUo ......

5 5

T^/^^TTTT) "V7 r\Ty T'TJ't? "P \ "D 'V » o C T T C i

lUiliiKY, UK lJtl£. JTAKiNAbbUb . . '. .

5 5

III

1 HH, oUMUUjL Ur jrilrllLJNb ....

III

rlGUKll. rKOM THE olbllNE L^HAPEL

"

L/ARIOON yJY JrlbA .....

? 5

I I 0

1 riJl. IMlbr UKl U JNi<.b Ul* J Uii

J 5

"XT r\ K tt A XT T\ T T T O T7* A H r T T 1 r

iSOAH AND HIS rAMILY ....

J 5

157

Composition by Orcagna, and the Imitation

OF it by Raphael

5 5

St. Peter Martyr . . . ; .

Descent from the Cross ....

5 5

172

St, Michael

224

Battle of the Amazons ....

55

235

Human Life ......

5 5

244

Itinerant Fiddler ....

55

246

The Satin Gown

55

249

An Italian Landscape, engraved from Cozens

5 5

263

A Lake Scene, engraved from Girtin

5 5

266

Group from the Sistine Chapel

55

283

The Surrender of Breda ....

55

284

The Anatomist Tulp

55

295

SECTION I

On the Imitation of Nature^ and on Style

In comparing Art with Nature, we are as apt to
underrate it, as in considering it by itself we are
sometimes disposed to elevate it unduly; and both
errors stand in the way of our improvement.

Though, in a comprehensive sense, it be true that
"all Nature is but Art," and "all Chance direction;"
and though it be of great importance that we should
keep these truths always in mind, yet that Painting
cannot rival the beauties of Nature is not a defect,
for it can only be defective where it fails to do what
is possible ; and how far the painter may do some-
thing else, and something valuable, and something
which Nature herself refuses to do, though she teaches
it, I shall endeavour to show.

The axiom that the most perfect Art is that in
which the Art is most concealed, is directed, I appre-
hend, against an ostentatious display of the means by
which the end is accomplished, and does not imply
that we are to be cheated into a belief of the artist
having effected his purpose by a happy chance, or by
such extraordinary gifts as have rendered study and

B

ON THE IMITATION OF NATURE,

pains unnecessary. On the contrary, we always ap-
preciate and therefore enjoy a picture the more in
proportion as we discover ourselves, or are shown by
others, the why and the wherefore of its excellences,
and much of the pleasure it gives us depends on the
intellectual employment it affords. Nor does the
concealment of Art mean concealment of imitation,
or that what it gives is to pass on us for a reality, for
then we should immediately want what we never miss
in a fine picture, motion and sound. Both of these
it is a great triumph of the painter to suggest.
Rubens was pre-eminently successful in giving action
to his figures, and Hogarth's " Enraged Musician," as
Fielding says, "is deafening to look at." But could
the eye be deceived, from that moment the figures of
Rubens would stand still, and the din of Hogarth's
groups would cease ; and, indeed, such Art would be
unnatural, because, unless in the representation of
still life, it would have the motionless and speechless
appearance of wax-work — the most life-like, in ex-
ternals, of all the modes of imitating Nature, and for
that very reason the most lifeless.

These remarks are so obvious that they may seem
superfluous. I may be told that deception is not
attempted, and is, indeed, generally impossible, from
the circumstances of pictures being bounded by their
frames, and the diminutive scale on which natural
objects are most often represented. Still, as this
lowest kind of truth is sometimes the aim of the
painter, though it has never been the aim of a true
artist, and as I have often heard it highly applauded
when to a certain degree successful, and even by

AND ON STYLE

3

painters, it seems to me of importance that we should
clearly understand that the illusion of Art is quite
another thing from deception of the eye, and that
such deception would in fact destroy illusion.

Children and childish minds are attracted by won-
ders. I remember when I was a boy seeing a picture
that was placed flat against the wall at the end of a
long room, representing an open door through which
a flight of stairs receded, with the figure of a man of
the size of life painted as if walking up them. At the
base of the canvas a real step projected on the floor
of the room, and at a certain distance it was impos-
sible to distinguish between the painted stairs and
the wooden one ; indeed, so complete was the decep-
tion, that on first seeing it my only wonder was at
the man's remaining stationary. This picture seemed
to me perfection, and at that time I should probably
have looked on the finest Titian with comparative
indifference. It was, however, the work of a very
ordinary painter, and I have since learned that decep-
tion to the degree in which it was here, with the
assistance of a little ingenious management, attained,
depends merely on carefully copying some of the
most obvious appearances of Nature; and that her
most charming qualities — all that the greatest artists
have courted in her throughout their lives with success
infinitely short of their hopes — may be omitted with-
out rendering the representation less delusive.

I would ask whether others have not felt what has
always occurred to me in looking at a Panorama, —
that exactly in the degree in which the eye is deceived,
the stillness of the figures and the silence of the place

ON THE IMITATION OF NATURE,

produce a strange and somewhat unpleasant effect,
and the more so if the subject places us in a city.
We then want the hum of population and the din of
carriages, and the few voices heard in the room have
an unnatural sound as not harmonising with the scene.
Even in the Diorama, where the light and shade is
varied by movement, and the water is made to ripple,
there are still many wants to be supplied, and these
are indeed suggestive the more in proportion to the
attainment of deception. I have no wish to disparage
the ingenuity of such contrivances ; the Panorama is
an admirable mode of conveying much information
which by no other means can so well be given. My
object is merely to ascertain how it is that there is
always something unsatisfactory — to speak from my
own feelings, I should say unpleasant — in all Art of
every kind of which deception is an object. We do
not like to be cheated even in a harmless way ; the
wonder excited by the tricks of a juggler is not without
a mixture of humiliation ; the powers of our minds,
instead of being exercised, are for the time suspended,
and even our senses cease to serve us j while the Art
of a great actor delights us, not only as an imitation
of Nature, but because our imaginations are excited,
our understandings appealed to, and we have a secret
gratification in the consciousness of the feelings he
arouses within us; and these are also among the
many sources of pleasure we derive from the works of
a great painter. " I feel," said Reynolds, speaking of
Michael Angelo, "a self-congratulation in knowing
myself capable of such sensations as he intended to
excite." But neither at the theatre nor before a

AND ON STYLE

5

picture should we feel in this way, were we for a
moment to mistake what we see for reality.

" Imitation," says Coleridge, " is the mesothesis of
likeness and difference. The difference is as essential
to it as the likeness; for without the difference it
would be copy or facsimile. But to borrow a term
from astronomy, it is a librating mesothesis; for it
may verge more to likeness, as in painting, or more
to difference, as in sculpture."

It is of the utmost importance, however, that we
should come to a clear understanding of this difference
between Painting and Nature, as from mistakes on
this point have proceeded all the varieties of manner-
ism that have in every age sprung up like weeds in
the fair domain of Art, and not seldom with their
rank luxuriance qver-run its whole extent. Every
fault arising from indolence, from inability, or from
conceit, may be sheltered, as it has been sheltered,
under the principle that the object of Painting is not
to deceive. Defective colouring, mannered forms,
impudent and tasteless bravura of execution, as well
as servile imitation of that which is very easy to copy,
the immaturity of early Art.

Perhaps the best safeguard against mistake on this
subject will be found in our perception that the Art
of Painting is in no respect^ excepting in what relates
to its mechanical instruments, a human invention, but
the result solely of the discovery and application of
those laws by which Nature addresses herself to the
mind and heart through the eye ; and that there is no-
thing really excellent in Art, that is not strictly the con-
sequence of the artist's obedience to the laws of Nature.

6 ON THE IMITATION OF NATURE,

Now deception, excepting with extraneous assist-
ance, or but for a moment, is impossible. One
instant's close examination of a wax figure which we
have just before believed to be alive, shows us to
what an infinite distance it is removed from Nature.
And yet such is the effect of its approach to life, that
even after we know what it is, we feel as much as
ever its want of the power to move, and which we
never miss in a fine statue. In all I have said, there-
fore, of deception of the eye, I have only meant
deception for a moment or at a distance ; for Nature
allows of no substitutes that will bear continued or
close inspection. And yet, while she has placed this
beyond the reach of human hands, she has entrusted
Art with a pecuHar mission — the power, as I have
said, of doing something for the world which she her-
self refuses to do. How many of her most exquisite
forms, graces, and movements — how many of her
most beautiful combinations of colours, of lights, and
shadows that are — "instant seen and instant gone" —
does she not permit the painter to transfix for the
delight of ages ! And, indeed, he is entrusted with
another and a higher task, that of leading us to a
perception of many of her latent beauties, and of
many of her appearances which the unassisted eye
might not recognise as beauties, but for the direction
of the pencil. These considerations alone are enough
to show that Art has a place assigned to it in the
great scheme of beneficence by which man is allowed
to be the instrument of adding not only to his sources
of innocent enjoyment, but of instruction. " Painting
and sculpture," says Richardson, "are not necessary

AND ON STYLE

7

to our being ; brutes and savage men subsist without
them ; but to our happiness as rational creatures they
are absolutely so."

From what I have said, it is evident I must be at
issue with Lessing, when he tells us that "all appear-
ances of Nature which, in their actual state, are but
of an instant's duration — all such appearances, be
they agreeable or otherwise, acquire, through the pro-
longed existence conferred on them by Art, a charac-
ter so contrary to Nature, that at every successive
view we take of them their expression becomes
weaker, till at length we turn from the contemplation
in weariness and disgust. La Mettrie, who had his
portrait painted and engraved in the character of
Democritus, laughs only on the first view. Look at
him again, and the philosopher is converted into a
buffoon, and his laugh into a grimace. Thus it is
likewise with the expression of pain. The agony
which is so great as to extort a shriek, either soon
abates in violence or it must destroy the unhappy
sufferer. Where torture so far overcomes the endur-
ing fortitude of a man's nature as to make him scream,
it is never for any continued space of time ; and thus
the apparent perpetuity expressed in the representation
of Art would only serve to give to his screams the
effect of womanish weakness or childish impatience."

Lessing argues in this way to show why the sculptor
of the Laocoon has not chosen to make the victim
bellow with pain, as in the description of his sufferings
by Virgil. The attitudes of the entire group, however,
being but of "an instant's duration," are, on the prin-
ciple urged by the critic against a stronger expression,

8 ON THE IMITATION OF NATURE,

as inadmissible as if the sculptor had made the victim
appear to shriek with anguish. Then as to the un-
pleasant effect of a laughing portrait, we all feel how
disagreeable an unmeaning laugh is in nature ; and
in a portrait, unconnected with story or incident, it
becomes unmeaning or worse, if, as probably in the
instance alluded to by Lessing, the face looks at us.
He was, in fact, blinded by his theory, to the privilege
which Art, when it does not pretend to be Nature,
possesses of perpetuating motion and expression, and
which yet seem instantaneous ; a power as undeniable
as it is inexplicable. At the bidding of Michael
Angelo, life bursts from the grave, and its tenants rise^
fall, or struggle with the fiends who drag them down ;
and on the canvases of Wilson or Caspar Poussin
clouds open ; lightnings flash, and the limbs of trees
are shivered, — and we recur again and again to the
contemplation of images of terror and grandeur that
have impressed, as they do us, past generations, and
shall still impress those to come; and so far from
" their expression becoming," as Lessing says, "weaker
at every successive view," it grows in reality stronger
and stronger ; for it is among the most remarkable
qualities of every work of true genius, that it gains on
us with time, while that which is merely specious
strikes most at first, and never again with the same
effect.

But the mission of Art includes other things which
Nature refuses to do, besides prolonging motion and
expression, and suggesting sound.

Wilkie took great pleasure in arranging tableaux
vivants for the amusement of his friends. I remember

AND ON STYLE

9

seeing, at his house, such representations of Vandyke's
Cardinal Bentivoglio, his whole-length of Charles the
First in his robes, and other well-known pictures. As
may be supposed, they were remarkably well imitated,
the company were delighted, and one gentleman went
so far as to say, " I shall never enjoy pictures again."

I confess my impression was exactly the reverse.
I felt that I should enjoy the originals of these tableaux
far more for having seen these living imitations of
them ; and I think every painter must so feel who has
amused himself or been amused in this way. The
draperies stubbornly refuse to fall in lines as fine, or
in masses of light and shade, and colour, as broad as
in the picture imitated ; the unimportant throughout
the composition obtrudes, and the important often
conceals itself; and though, here and there, exquisite
beauties of effect may appear which no Art can rival,
yet even these are apt to be out of place in the general
arrangement, and the whole imitation has always far
less of that great essential, breadth, than we find in
the particular picture imitated. It is not that Nature
cannot do and has not done everything that is im-
pressive in Art, and infinitely more than Art has ever
attempted ; for she and she alone is the maker of Art,
but having done this, she refuses to make pictures;
because she will not interfere with the craft of the
painter, any more than she will allow him to substitute
the results of his craft for her matchless works.

And now we come to a great and unceasing diffi-
culty; the difficulty of choosing from among the
qualities of Nature that are most within reach of the
pencil, those we should strive to the utmost to attain.

lo ON THE IMITA TION OF NA TURE,

and those which may be left out with advantage, or
but slightly indicated. All the most agreeable traits
of Nature, as well as all the least, are so variously
modified by circumstances and by associations, that
to attempt to give anything like general rules for
selection and rejection— that difficult task in which
the painter is engaged from the beginning to the end
of his work, and on which all that the mind has to do
with Art depends— to attempt to give general rules
for this would only lead to mannerism. Hogarth, in
his " Battle of the Pictures," has with infinite humour
opposed his Bacchanalian scene in the "Rake's
Progress" to a "Feast of the Gods;" but, when we
look at these seriously, we see two subjects brought
together in which, whatever they may have in common,
the treatment proper to each would be wholly im-
proper if exchanged.

Coleridge has well guarded the passage I have
quoted from him, by calling the difference from
Nature, which is essential to imitation, "a librating
difference.'' It will vary, in the hands of a painter of
taste, with the subject ; and his imitation will even be
less literal in some parts of the same picture than in
others, without destroying the unity of the whole.

Reynolds, in his "Death of Dido," indicates the
wound in her side by a slight touch of red, while a
mere matter-of-fact painter would draw our attention
to it by a degree of exact imitation that would be
sickening.

It is such a plodding and indiscriminate habit of
copying Nature that pleases Gerard Dow, to me, much
below the best painters of the Dutch school. Where

AND ON STYLE

II

he would render with scrupulous precision every
wrinkle in the face of an old woman, greater artists,
as his master, Rembrandt, for instance, would express
the character of flesh, and make the head a means of
displaying a fine effect of chiaroscuro; and where
Dow would count the threads of a carpet, Terburgh,
Metzu, or Jan Steen, would express the beauty of its
surface or the richness of its colour.

It is not to his high finish that I object, but to
the tastelessness of his finish. Where the imitation
of minutiae is to stop it is not easy to determine;
but it is clear that the finish that be-littles, or that
suggests at the first glance the labour and time em-
ployed in it, must be wrong.

His Art is, therefore, exactly that which may be
accomplished by a clever, a patient, and laborious
man, without imagination, and with but ordinary taste.
Perhaps he stands at the head of a class of such
painters, and a very large class it is ; while the Art of
Terburgh, of Metzu, of Jan Steen, and, I need not
say, of Rembrandt, like all sterling Art, is ideal.
Nature not altered, but " to advantage dressed."

But here I feel the difficulty of offering advice
to students of different degrees of advancement — the
impossibility, indeed, of accommodating anything I
can say to the individual wants of all. In the prac-
tice of drawing or painting from Nature, there can
be no doubt that, until correctness of eye and obedi-
ence of hand are attained, the closest possible, the
most minute imitation, is the best. The aim at
deception can do no harm until these powers are
matured ; for, as Fuseli remarks, — " deception is the

12 ON THE IMITATION OF NATURE,

parent of imitation;" and till the taste is well
advanced, it is in a high degree dangerous to attempt
to generalise. We should be able to put everything
we see in Nature into a picture before we venture to
leave anything out. I have known young painters
commence with generahsation, affecting a contempt
for the attention to minutiae of some of their con-
temporaries, the secret of which lay in their own
indolence. But the result of this was always that a
vague and uninformed style, in the end, consigned
their productions to oblivion. No painter ever
generalised with more taste and meaning than
Velasquez, but his early works are remarkable for
precision of imitation, of which ''The Water Carrier,"
belonging to the Duke of Wellington, is an admirable
specimen. Indeed it may safely be assumed that no
pamter is likely to become great who does not begin
with scrupulous finish. There may have been
instances of the reverse, but in every such case there
has been something to unlearn.

Style is a comprehensive term applying to every-
thing in painting, — to composition, to form, to colour,
to chiaroscuro, and to execution. Of the last, indeed,
there are almost as many styles as painters, and of
all as many styles as schools. But there is nothing
analogous to these diversities of Art in Nature. Photo-
graphic pictures might be made from every variety of
scenery in the world, and yet what we may call their
style would be but one. Style, however, rightly under-
stood, is so far from objectionable in Painting, that it
forms one among its valuable prerogatives. The ob-
servation of Reynolds, that " peculiar marks are gener-

AND ON STYLE

13

ally, if not always, defects," is directed against manner
not style; but as these are often confounded, it is
well that we should understand the difference. Style
in form, in character, in expression, in colour, and in
light and shadow, is the result of the choice of the best
of these with reference to the subject. It is, therefore,
synonymous with the ideal, and abstractedly considered
is natural, but almost always above individual Nature.
Manner is a departure from Nature, sometimes result-
ing from a dissatisfaction with her ordinary forms with-
out the ability of correcting them by comparison and
selection, but more often from the indolence that
adopts compendious modes of arrangement, expression,
execution, etc. The styles of the greatest painters
are, perhaps, in no instance perfectly free from some
alloy of manner, while the manner of a great painter,
as Fuseli has remarked, often becomes the style of
lesser ones.'

It by no means follows, however, that because styles
are different — I take the word now in its highest
signification — some are right and others WTong.
Apart from manner, the style of every genuine painter
is right ; the difference consisting in his giving some
quahty or quahties of Nature in more perfection than
they have been given by any other ; and if it be asked
whether Nature can supply every individual with some-
thing which, in the same degree, is denied to the rest ?
I would answer, that if the principles on which Nature
works are simpler than we are apt to imagine, the
combinations of effects resulting from these principles
are endless.

Style and subject are often confounded with each

14 ON THE IMITATION OF NATURE,

other by writers, and in ordinary conversation nothing
is more common than this mistake : as an instance, I
remember that Paul Delaroche's picture of " Charles
the First insulted by the Soldiers " was said to be in
the style of Terburgh, because the dresses were such
as he painted.

In regarding early Italian Art, to which attention
has of late years been so much attracted, it is of great
consequence that we consider its distance from Nature
not as a departure from her, but as the nearest ap-
proach the painters could make to her, — a distance
they laboured to shorten with a remarkable steadiness
of advance to the consummation of Art in the hands of
Michael Angelo and Raphael. The general character
of mediaeval imitation is the same as that of Chinese
Art, and is evidently a style, if such it may be called,
which must chiefly mark immaturity everywhere and
under all circumstances. In the infant Art of every
country the accidental appearances of Nature are
omitted, not so much, perhaps, from their being
unperceived as from a notion that they would interfere,
and when imperfectly given they do interfere, with
beauty and expression, both of which have always been
the first objects of all serious Art. The Chinese, for
instance, though much of their ornamental painting
belongs to the grotesque, yet in their representations
of real life aim to the utmost at beauty, grace, and
expression. To those enthusiastic admirers of
mediaeval Art who may think there is something
sacrilegious in comparing anything by Chinese hands
with it, I might mention that Flaxman, than whom
no man ever more fully appreciated early Italian Art,

AND ON STYLE

and who, indeed, was the first among the moderns
to direct attention to it, saw how much, apart from
subject, Chinese painting had in common with it ; for
I remember seeing Chinese pictures hanging on the
walls of his parlour, which he admired for their grace
and simplicity, as well as for the beauty of their colour.
It may not, indeed, be impossible that the Chinese
exercised some influence on European Art at its re-
vival. Lord Lindsay notices a resemblance to Chinese
Art in some of the Roman frescoes executed at the
beginning of the eleventh century; and if Chinese
silks were imported by the Roman emperors, why
might not some of the pictures of that singular people
(a people whose artists have always been colourists)
find their way to Rome, when painting was nearly ex-
tinct in Europe ? The resemblance between Chinese
and Venetian colour is very striking; much more so
than any resemblance between Indian, or Persian, and
Venetian Art.

The severity of critics on the sameness of the works
of one hand is not always just. Where it is same-
ness of an excellence we should be grateful for it.
The gentleness, so utterly removed from insipidity, of
Raphael, the sublimity of Michael Angelo, the almost
invariably golden tones of Titian, or the pervading
silver of Paul Veronese, are things of which true
taste never tires. To demand that every work of one
master should be distinct in all its characteristics, is
to ask for something which the conditions of human
nature refuse to grant. We have sufficient variety
in the various men ; and the endeavour of a painter to
go out of himself and into another, to give up what

1 6 ON THE I MIT A TION OF NA TURE

may be called his birthright^ is always to be lamented
if he have genius. A friend of Stothard, on being told
that he had painted a picture very like Rubens, said,
with much good sense, " I would rather see a picture
by him very like Stothard. " Gainsborough occasionally
stands "on the same level in portraiture with Reynolds,
because he kept himself distinct; but had he at-
tempted the same style, he must at once have fallen
below his illustrious rival, there to remain.

SECTION II

On the Lnitation of Art

A YOUNG painter at the commencement of his studies,
how far soever he may be from a perception of the
highest beauties of pictures, will often see truly some
of their greatest faults. As he becomes better ac-
quainted with fine works, the beauties he discovers in
them atone for the faults which he still sees; but
if, on becoming more alive to their excellences, he
allows himself to be persuaded that the faults are ne-
cessarily connected with the beauties, — or that they
are conventional merits, and not only inseparable from,
but indispensable to, particular styles, — he makes an
opening in his mind for the admission of all the un-
founded theories which ingenious critics have broached
on the false system of considering pictures as the Art,
rather than as manifestations of parts of the Art, which
is the most that can be said even of the greatest works
known to the world.

Were the study of pictures alone sufficient to make
great painters of us, we are bound to surpass all our
predecessors. But with apparently greater advantages,
in this respect, than the world ever before presented,
the young painter has more real difficulties to contend

c

i8 ON THE IMITATION OF ART

with, in the commencement of his studies now, than
at any former time. The very wealth of Art creates
one source of embarrassment. The student is apt to
be so impressed with awe by the works of the great
masters now congregated in galleries, that any attempt
to rival or combine their excellences seems utterly
hopeless. He wanders through the public collections,
admiring rather than studying the productions of an
order of beings that he cannot believe are ever again
to exist. He settles it in his mind that an approach
to such excellence will be happiness enough for him.
H^3 aim, therefore, is low from the first ; and, as is
always the case, he falls short of his aim, and dooms
himself to mediocrity for life. This is the defect of
one class of minds.

Another class find it easy to imitate in a superficial
way, but in a way sufficiently plausible to catch the
admiration of superficial critics, the dash of Art. They
omit details, because great painters have done so ;
but they do not see that the very omissions of the
great masters are full of slight and exquisite indications
of knowledge which they have not acquired. They
endeavour to grasp the end without being acquainted
with the means; and though they may impose on
themselves and the world for a time, the emptiness of
their pretensions is sure to be discovered at last. It
is in reference to the productions of such minds that
Richardson says, "there is bold painting, and there
is also impudent painting.''

Another error, and as I conceive a very pernicious
and prevailing one, is sectarianism in Art ; the bigoted
admiration of any one school or any one master, how-

ON THE IMITATION OF ART

19

ever deserving of admiration, to the exclusion of all
the rest. There cannot be a greater mistake ; and I
have invariably remarked, that he who pins his faith
wholly on any one style is exactly he who least per-
ceives that in it which is its peculiar charm. All
great masters throw light on each other; and I am
convinced that no mind will thoroughly relish Raphael
and Michael Angelo, which does not thoroughly relish
Rubens and Rembrandt. Nay, I will say, that the
simplicity and the purity of feeling of Giotto, Angelico,
and others of the early Italian masters, will be best
appreciated by the mind that is most sensibly alive to
every variety of excellence in the Art. The bigoted
sectarian generally admires in the wrong place, — clings
to what is merely accidental, to that which belongs to
the time and country in which the painter has lived ;
and ever fails to perceive that w^hich is essential in the
style, that which is catholic, and which therefore con-
nects all the first-rate minds of all ages with each
other. It is this essence which is really the Art, all
else is but its dress.

Another obstacle to the advantage to be derived
from the works of the old masters, is the belief that
everything has been done that can be done. We are
prone to consider the Art as an inclosure in which we
can only travel in a circle, rather than as a vantage-
ground from which fresh discoveries in Nature may be
made. It is easy to add capricious and eccentric
novelties of style to what exists ; but to present some
genuine quality of Nature for the first time, or some
new combination of what is already known to Art, is
the great difficulty; and yet, I believe, it might be

ON THE IMITATION OF ART

oftener and more easily accomplished than it is, if we
would allow Art to lead us to Nature, rather than erect
it into a barrier against all in Nature that is not already
admitted within its confines. He who believes that
Nature is not exhausted, will, I am convinced, if he
truly loves her, find that she is not. It is this faith
in her abundance that has caused every revival of Art
from its slumbers. Such a faith inspired Rubens and
Rembrandt to restore the glories of the Flemish and
Dutch schools, not by attempting their exact revival,
but by opening new views and creating each a style of
his own, which, in spite of many and great faults, has
placed them for ever among the most illustrious bene-
factors of painting. A Hke faith emboldened Hogarth,
notwithstanding the most discouraging circumstances
that ever genius was surrounded by, to create a species
of Art, unknown to the world before him, and to carry
it at once to a condition precluding all imitation ; and
it was the same faith in the boundless stores of Nature
that enabled Reynolds to give a fresh charm to por-
trait, after all that had been done for it by Holbein,
Raphael, Titian, Rubens, Vandyke, Velasquez, and
Rembrandt.

It is easy to delude ourselves into the belief that
we love Art or that we love Nature, but the genuine
love and appreciation of both will certainly produce
such effects as I have noticed ; for the great painters,
that have been mentioned, have all achieved their
separate triumphs by that unerring instinct of genius
which looks to Art only as the interpreter of Nature,
and not as a thing in itself perfect and complete.

The minds of students are much more impressed, in

ON THE IMITATION OF ART

21

the commencement of their studies, by the productions
of their contemporaries than by the works of the old
masters,^ and these early impressions are not always
wholly eradicated through the longest life. There may
be seeming exceptions to this, but I believe there are
very few real ones. That contemporary Art is the
first to impress us may be advantageous, or otherwise,
according to circumstances. Its advantages need not
be dwelt upon, as such influence stands in no need of
recommendation ; but it may be useful to point out
some of the dangers of what is an unavoidable because
an unconscious habit of our students, the habit of
resorting to our annual exhibitions as to so many
schools.

In an assemblage of the accidental productions of
a year, and with which it is necessary to cover every
inch of wall, there must, of necessity, be a great pre-
ponderance of the indifferent, and very much of what
is positively bad; and inexperienced eyes cannot
dwell often and long on this without injury. The
student is apt to thank his stars that he can do better
than much that he sees, and contents himself with re-
spectable mediocrity ; and the more so as it is found
that mediocrity, managed with ordinary tact, may secure
patronage, and even fortune, while unworldly genius is
often neglected. There are no topics more frequently
dwelt on by writers and talkers than the faults of the
age — and yet nothing so difficult to understand. But
to the young artist it is of the last importance that he
should see clearly what are the besetting sins of the

1 I can remember thinking Lawrence a better painter than
Reynolds, and West equal to Raphael.

ON THE IMITATION OF ART

school to which he belongs. These, it is very true,
are to be seen in their fullest luxuriance in our ex-
hibitions; but there is danger, if the student resort
frequently to them for instruction, that he may become
hopelessly blind to the mannerism of the day ; and,
indeed, this error in self-education is the chief cause
of the decline of Art in every school.

A young artist will find, as he advances, that a
thorough appreciation of the qualities that make paint-
ing poetic is chiefly confined to painters, or to others
whose occupations have left them much leisure to in-
dulge a natural admiration of the Art. A great poet
may feel the beauties of Painting, but he does not
necessarily feel them because he is a great poet, and
it is possible that even Shakspeare may scarcely
have known a good picture from a bad one, though
there can be no doubt that his perception of a poetic
incident or thought in a picture, would have been
quicker than that of most men. Coleridge has noticed
that Milton, though he must have seen in his youth
the greatest works of Art in Italy, makes no allusion
to them in any of his writings.

Neither Byron nor Scott, with all their relish for
the beauties of Nature, had any knowledge or love of
Painting, as Art ; and I believe, among the poets of
the age, Mr. Rogers, in possessing such a taste, is the
one exception. The want of a true taste in Art is
not a fault ; but it is a grievous fault when those who
are without it, or who have a mere amateur smattering
knowledge of Painting (a far worse thing than no
knowledge), erect themselves, on account of their rank,
or fortune, or position in society, into directors of the

ON THE IMITATION OF ART

23

public in matters of Art. Such wealthy and titled
meddlers have often, though with the best intentions
on their part, been the worst enemies of the Arts of
this country.

If a great poet be not necessarily a judge of pictures,
still less is a great statesman or a great prince likely
to find time to become one. We are fond of recurring
to the golden age of Leo X., during which, however,
Michael Angelo, then in the prime of life, and when
his powers as an artist were greater than they had been
or ever were again, was shamefully misemployed. His
great works in the Sistine Chapel were stopped, and
he was banished to the mountains of Pietra Santa,
during almost the entire pontificate of Leo, there to
do the work of an engineer ! That the greatest works
of Art, since its revival, graced the ages of Julius II.
and Leo X., is, I am inclined to think, traceable to a
rare and fortunate concurrence of circumstances, rather
than to any remarkable taste in those Popes, other
than a general love of the magnificent.

But I would fain hope, though the highest excel-
lences in all the fine Arts are addressed only to the
few, yet that few is not so small a number as may be
supposed ; for I believe thousands of modest minds
pass silently through the world, unheard of, whose
lives are sweetened by their gentle influences, and
whose real enjoyments in matters of taste are far greater
than the enjoyments of many who are publicly known
as patrons.

But to return to our subject. — "The eye," as Sir
Charles Eastlake says, " has its own poetry ; " and it
is of great importance that we keep in mind the dis-

24 ON THE IMITATION OF ART

tinction between a poetic thought or incident and the
poetry that is inherent in Painting, and without which
Painting is not a fine art.

In the " Cephalus and Aurora," of Nicolo Poussin
in our National Gallery, the substitution of Apollo for
the rising sun, as he has managed it, is in the highest
degree poetic. But the thought alone is a mere imi-
tation of the poets, which might have occurred to the
most prosaic mind. It is entirely, therefore, to the
technical treatment — to the colour, and to the manner
in which the forms of the chariot and horses of the
god melt into the shapes of clouds, in fact, to the
chiaroscuro, that the incident, as connected with the
picture, owes its poetry; and the same technical quali-
ties in the hands of Rembrandt, in one of his finest
landscapes, make the sails of a windmill, from which
the last glow of evening is reflected, eminently poetic.

Mr. Ruskin has noticed incidents in the pictures of
Tintoret that show how fine an imagination he pos-
sessed; but had not his light and shadow and his
colour been of a high order, the works containing these
incidents would have passed into oblivion.

I have never seen the "Polyphemus" of Nicolo
Poussin. To judge from copies, its effect should be
light and silvery ; but the engraving, alone, shows it
to me as the most poetic of all the landscape com-
positions of this eminently poetic painter. It is made
up of the most beautiful and romantic features of
Nature, and richly peopled from classic poetry. The
fountain in the foreground, flowing from the urn of a
river god, and tended in its course by a beautiful
group of nymphs, tells us of the death of Acis. One

ON THE IMITATION OF ART 25

of the nymphs turns to the distant sea, in which
Galatea has hid herself, and from which Polyphemus
endeavours to draw her forth by his rude minstrelsy.
So I understand the picture. But, whether or not I
translate it aright, its impression is equally poetic, and
was so to me before I looked for the story. Its great
feature, the form of the giant relieved upon the bright
sky as he sits on his rocky throne, owes its grandeur
to the strictly technical principles of perspective, linear
and aerial ; and if the painters of antiquity were, as
some have supposed, unacquainted with the laws of
this science, it is clear that Zeuxis himself could not
have given the sublimity this subject has received at
the hands of the French painter ; and we are sure that
neither Orcagna nor any ItaHan, before perspective or
chiaroscuro (which includes aerial perspective) were
understood, could have effected such an impression.

In endeavouring to enforce the importance of tech-
nical qualities, I do not undervalue the high conceptions
of Art. But I wish to draw attention to the only
means by which they can be fully displayed. These
means are the things that are proper to painting
alone, — and which it is too much the fashion to
depreciate, as merely technical, merely ornamental,
or merely sensual.

I would say to the painter who undervalues these, —
Tell your story, describe your scene, express your senti-
ment, or display your learning in words, and you may
arrive at the honours of a poet or a philosopher ; but
do not attempt to do so in a language with which you
have made yourself but imperfectly acquainted, be-
cause you were insensible to its worth, — and expect

26

ON THE IMITATION OF ART

to share the reward of those who are skilled in that
language, though they may not possess your imagina-
tion or your knowledge of books.

Let us not be duped by words. Let us remember
that what is technical in Painting has not yet been
achieved with the perfection that may be imagined
even by the greatest artists ;— that what is ornamental
is an imitation of the ornaments with which the Crea-
tor has decorated every work of his hands ; and that
what is sensual is only so, in an evil sense, by an
abuse of his gifts.

There is no word in our language more often mis-
applied to Art than this word sensual — no modes of
reasoning more erroneous than those of late so much
in use, based on analogies, that have no real existence,
between the pleasures of sense. A modern, accom-
plished, and eloquent writer,^ following a notion of
Blake, deprecates, for instance, the occasional soften-
ing of the outline, by comparing it to " that lax morality
which confounds the limits of light and darkness, right
and wrong. Not being a painter, he is not aware
that he is here objecting to the truest imitation of
Nature.

Again he says, " We find the purest and brightest
colours only in Fra Angelic o's pictures, with a general
predominance of blue, which we have observed to
prevail more or less in so many of the semi-Byzan-
tine painters ; and which, fanciful as it may appear, I
cannot but attribute, independently of mere tradition,
to an inherent, instinctive sympathy between their
mental constitution and the colour in question, as
^ Lord Lindsay.

ON THE IMITATION OF ART

27

that of red or of blood may be observed to prevail
among painters in whom Sense or Nature predominates
over Spirit." Now why, I would ask, is the reasoning
in this passage to be confined to the colours of red and
of blue ? — Why may it not discover that painters in
whom avarice predominates are fond of yellow because
it is the colour of gold, — and so on ? But, in truth,
the sensual Correggio seems less fond of red than
almost any other painter. In all his works, with which
I am acquainted, it is very sparingly introduced, while
nothing can exceed the refinement with which delicate
blues (and he was very fond of blue) are managed by
him. Then, again, a distinction seems implied, in the
passage I have quoted, between the Spiritual and the
Natural, as if it were possible to express the spiritual
by any other medium than the natural. A painter, it
is true, may be very natural without being spiritual,
but that which is spiritual in Art can only be fully
developed in the degree in which the painter is natural.

Though I know little of the works of Fra Angelico, I
will not question the justice of the praises that have
been given to him by his warmest admirers. I do not
envy the man who can read the accounts handed down
to us of the character and habits of this sainted
painter, and his heart not be warmed. Such a being,
so purified from all earthly stain, and living a life so
entirely above the world, endued also with genius and
taste, must have been, as he was felt to be by his con-
temporaries, the fittest painter, of that time, of angels.
But then he could only bring to the task the imperfect
Art he possessed, and it seems to me a fatal sign
against all healthy progress in Painting, that it is

28 ON THE IMITATION OF ART

necessary to say that such colour and such evanescence
of treatment as Reynolds has given to that exquisite
group of winged heads in our National Gallery, would
have made even the angels of Angelico more angelic.
I say nothing of the character of the cherubs of Rey-
nolds. Call them merely beautiful children, if you
will. We know they are but portraits, in different
views, of one child; but were they as ordinary in
character as the children of Murillo, I should still say
that, in colour and general treatment, they are among
the most angelic things known to the i\rt, and simply
because they are the most natural in the highest sense
of the word : and I am convinced that the sincere, the
truly humble, and therefore the truly teachable An-
gelico, would have gladly adopted all that Reynolds
possessed, beyond himself, could he have seen it ; —
yes, even though Reynolds has permitted the ringlets
of his cherubs to float loosely on the breath of Heaven,
instead of arranging them in sculpturesque regularity
over their foreheads with all the formality of a hair-
dresser; and which, as it accords with the style of
the early Italians, is by some critics, and not a few
painters, considered essential to the adornment of
angelic faces.

A system of imitation that rejects what such men as
Titian, Correggio, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Reynolds,
have revealed to the world of the beauties of Nature,
is based on a mistake as great as it would be in an
astronome- to rest satisfied with the state in which
Astronomy was left by Copernicus.^

^ I am glad to find that opinions which I expressed to
the students of the Royal Academy, five years ago, are in accord-

THE ANNUNCIATION— BY ANGELICO DA FIESOLE.

ON THE IMITATION OF ART

29

The supposed usurping nature of colour, by which
it is thought to draw attention too much from higher
qualities, we shall always find has been inferred only
from Art in which there is little story or expression ;
and of such Art it would be nearer the truth to say
that the colour does not interfere with the story or
expression, but reigns paramount only because the
story and expression do not interfere with it. Does
not the beauty of Hogarth's colour, instead of inter-
fering in the slightest degree with his story or ex-
pression, greatly aid them? When we stand before
his pictures in the National Gallery, is their colour,
fine as it is, ever the first thing we think or speak

ance with those of Dr. Waagen, from whose letter, addressed
*' To the Editor of the Times, July 13th, 1854," the following is
a quotation : —

Within a few years a school of painters has arisen in Eng-
land whose aim it is to elevate the character of modern art, not
only by the treatment of sacred subjects, but by the adoption of
the more or less undeveloped forms of the 15th century. Con-
sidering the warm interest I feel for the true advance of art in
this country, the kindness and deference with which my opinions
are here received by artists and friends of art, and the experience
which a German especially has gathered from the results of a
similar movement, originating 40 years ago, in his own country,
I feel it a kind of obligation to call the attention of the art-loving
portion of the public to the real tendency of this school. I need
hardly say that I sympathise entirely with the painters of this
class, both German and English, in the exceeding attractiveness
of that pure and earnest religious feeling which pervades the
works of Fiesole and other masters of the 15th century. I also
comprehend the liability in their minds to identify the expression
of that feeling with the forms peculiar to those masters. At the
same time, it is no less true that this identification, and the
efforts, however well meant, to which it has led, are totally mis-

ON THE IMITATION OF ART

of ?_The truth is, that to a cultivated eye it is bad
colour, that which is unnatural, whether from exaggera-
tion or from falling short of the hues of Nature, that
attracts attention from the subject and prevents our full
enjoyment of whatever other excellences the work may
have, — ^just as an instrument out of tune would preclude
the ear from the enjoyment of a fine piece of music.

It would be desirable, were it possible, that we
should form in our minds a standard of excellence
distinct from every particular style that has yet
existed ; but of such a standard we can only attain an

taKcn, and can only frustrate that end for which these painters
are so zealously labouring. Guided by this erroneous principle,
they have sought to transfer to their pictures not only the beauties,
but the defects of their great models ; unmindful of the fact,
which a general survey of the history of art does not fail to teach,
that those early masters attract us not on account of their
meagre drawing, hard outlines, erroneous perspective, conven-
tional glories, etc., but, on the contrary, in spite of these defects
and peculiarities. We overlook these simply and solely because,
in the undeveloped state of the scientific and technical resources
of painting at that period, they could not be avoided. But it is
quite another thing when, under the false impression that the
feeling they emulate can be better reared by ignorance than by
knowledge, we see these defects and peculiarities transferred to
the works of modem artists, who purposely close theii eyes to
those scientific and technical lights which have now become the
common property of art, and retrograde to a state of darkness
for which there is no excuse.

* ' It must be also borne in mind, that the whole style of feel-
ing proper to those early masters, deeply rooted as it was in the
rehgious enthusiasm of their times — of which it may be considered
as the highest and most refined fruit — cannot possibly be volun-
tarily recalled in a period of such totally different tendencies as
the present. It stands to reason, therefore, that the pictures even

ON THE IMITATION OF ART

31

imperfect vision — by the comparison of the styles that
have existed, and the discovery thence of the great
principles common to all.

In referring to pictures, I wish, as much as possible,
to speak of those which are immediately accessible to
us ; but our National Gallery has nothing that can be
considered as a worthy specimen of Mediaeval Art.^
The two pictures attributed to Taddeo Gaddi are but
antiquarian curiosities ; and the little Perugino is not
a work from which the master of Raphael is to be
judged. Francia cannot be classed with the mediaeval

of the most gifted modem artists, produced by such a process,
can at most be considered but as able reminiscences of the middle
ages, but by no means as the healthy expositors of the religious
feeling, now, thank God, greatly revived and proper to our age,
or of the resources of art so plentifully within their reach ; while
those of the less gifted, able only to counterfeit the defects, but
not to emulate the spirit of the olden time, present a scene of
misplaced labour the most painful a true lover of art can well
behold."

1 While these pages are passing through the press, I observe
that four specimens of early Art have been purchased for the
nation. A picture, ruined in its colour, of a Madonna and
Child, attended by Angels, and appearing to a Saint, who has a
desk, with a book and papers, before him, supposed to be by
Masaccio ; an indifferent portrait supposed to be by Albert Durer,
but destitute of any of the excellence of that great painter ; a Holy
Family, supposed to be by a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci ; and
a Head of the Saviour, of no value whatever, by an unknown
painter.

At the same time the proprietors of the Crystal Palace at
Sydenham have given us the means of forming some judgment
of Mediaeval Art, by a few powerfully-coloured copies from im-
portant works by Cimabue, Giotto, Fra Angelico, and others
of the early Italians.

32 ON THE IMITATION OF ART

painters, as he was contemporary with Raphael. Still,
he is a painter whom it is at present much the fashion,
with the advocates for the imitation of early Art, to
praise. His two pictures in our gallery are perhaps
not fair specimens of his style ; for the mediocrity that
pervades them, as well in character and sentiment as
in every other quality, is redeemed only by the head of
the Saviour, in the arched one, which is very fine, and
the more striking by its contrast to the red-eyed angels
on either side, — for both of which the painter's lay
figure might have served as a model. Nevertheless, as
I have heard the entire treatment of these pictures
highly commended by critics who would almost ex-
clude Raphael from among religious painters, I would
ask any body acquainted with Art — any one except a
bigoted devotee to the earlier masters — to turn from
the silver purity of Correggio to the Francias, and tell
me whether he does not feel how common, how tone-
less, and how hard their colour is, compared to that of
Correggio. I use the expression hard^ for colour may
be hard, and always is so when destitute of the grada-
tions and subtle varieties of tint which are inseparable
from it in Nature.

I am fully aware how often injustice is the result of
comparisons between dissimilar styles where each has
excellences of its own ; yet in comparing Correggio's
little picture of the "Virgin and Child'' with the
largest of the Francias, I feel that, in as far as the
colour and chiaroscuro of the former is more pure,
more refined, and therefore more natural, it is far more
in accord with holiness of sentiment than that of the
latter, — and that, even with regard to expression, the

ON THE IMITATION OF ART

33

" Madonna " of Correggio has at least that of maternal
joy and tenderness — while the insipid face that Francia
has given, has not sufficient character to express an
earnest sentiment of any kind.

There is a righteousness overmuch in taste, which,
though it may begin in sincerity, cannot but end
in sheer affectation; and against the mischief of
which the appeal must be to our eyes and to
common sense. No painter ever spread more of the
purest light of Heaven over the objects he painted
than Correggio. If what he shows us by that light is
not Heavenly — if, as Fuseli says, "he could build
Heaven, but he could not people it " — the light itself
which he drew down is not degraded. The difficulty
is, to separate in our minds qualities which we see
united in particular styles of Art, and which we are
therefore apt to imagine cannot and must not be
separated. It was a want of the power of doing this
that made Blake exclaim, "Correggio is a soft and
effeminate, and therefore a most cruel demon, — whose
whole delight is to cause endless labour to whoever
suffers him to enter his mind."

The truth is, Blake had attempted the imitation of
those natural qualities of Art so often denounced as
ornamental and sensual. He had suffered, as he said,
from "temptations and perturbations, destructive of
imaginative power by means of that infernal machine
called chiaroscuro, in the hands of Venetian and
Flemish demons who hate the Roman and Florentine
schools." These temptations led him to experiments
in which he failed, and by a consequence, which he did
not see, he failed in an adequate expression of his

D

34 ON THE IMITATION OF ART

conceptions, many of which are beautiful, and all the
emanations of one of the purest and most sincere of
minds; while Stothard, a far greater, because, as a
painter, a far wiser man than Blake, by availing him-
self of the assistance of everything excellent in pre-
vious Art, which his just mind could always separate
from the objectionable in subject or expression, has
left a rich legacy to his country of the true, the pure,
the playful, the graceful, and the sacred, — enshrined
in a style, not faultless certainly, but his own^ and
under the direction of a most refined taste.

And yet Blake's Art, imperfect as it is, is more
satisfactory to me than most of the modern imitations
of the early Italians that I have yet seen ; for it has an
earnestness of expression which I confess I look for
in vain in the Giottos of the present day.

It was greatly for the health and strength of early
Art, as well in Italy as in Germany, that it did not
begin with Imagination. And what is true of the
progress of a school is true of the progress of an in-
dividual— for the young painter who begins with Ima-
gination (and this was the fatal mistake of Blake)
begins at the wrong end of the Art. Hogarth painted
portraits and family groups before he began to invent ;
and the angels of the early Christian painters were
but a higher order of the attendants of the altar, while
the attitudes and expressions, and generally the gar-
ments of their saints, were suggested by the realities
that were every day before their eyes in churches and
convents. But in proportion as the imaginative faculty
developed itself, the painters ceased to introduce, into
sacred subjects, priestly and monkish habits, and the

ON THE IMITATION OF ART

35

practice was entirely laid aside by Michael Angelo,
and by Raphael (in his later practice) — and in their
hands Art became truly catholic.

Sir Charles Eastlake says that " among the merits
or recommendations of the Cartoons may be reckoned
their being interesting in all places and to all classes
of Christians. But for this circumstance, perhaps, we
should not now possess them ; for when the treasures
of Art collected by Charles the First were sold, and
such pictures as were deemed 'superstitious' were
ordered to be 'forthwith burnt,' the Cartoons would
hardly have been repurchased by Cromwell, to whom
we are indebted for preserving them to the nation, if
they could have been considered to come within the
proscribed class.

But the young painter is now told that he must " go
back to first principles." And what, I would ask, are
these first principles? — Many of the principles of
Nature, most important to Art, are among the latest
discoveries. But the student must "ascend to the
fountain-head, he must study Duccio and Giotto that
he may paint like Taddeo di Bertolo and Masaccio, —
Taddeo di Bertolo and Masaccio that he may paint
like Perugino and Lucca Signorelli — and Perugino and
Lucca Signorelli that he may paint like Raphael and
Michael Angelo. But, I ask, why should he aim to
paint like any, even the last of these ? Why attempt
that which never has been, and never can be, accom-
plished ? — namely, the reproduction of the exact style
of any age or master.

1 Note to Kugler's " Handbook of Painting for Italy."
2 Lord Lindsay.

36 ON THE IMITATION OF ART

Northcote was told that a picture had been painted
by a living artist that might be mistaken for a Claude.
"Then I know," was his reply, "that it is good for
nothing; if you should tell me that a picture were
painted as fine as a Claude it would be quite another
thing, for to be equal to Claude a painter must be as
distinct from him as he was from all the painters
before him. He must have looked at Nature for
himself, as Claude did; availing himself of the
assistance of previous Art only in the degree in which
Claude did so."

We can no more recall the precise Art of a past age
than we can return to the manners, the customs, and
the entire mode of thinking of that age. Man, in
every period of the world, is essentially the same ; but
his tastes are so modified by the conditions of the
society in which he lives, that all attempts at literal
imitation of a bygone epoch become mere affectation ;
and as the spirit of Chaucer is not to be caught by
adopting his phraseology or by printing in black letter,
so neither shall we catch the spirit of any school or
master by adopting that from it which is merely
temporary.

The system on which the most original painters have
imitated their predecessors has always been eclectic,
and so it will always be ; for without any settled plan
of combining the beauties of other schools, like that
which has given the name of eclectics especially to the
Carracci and their scholars, no painter of true taste
can see an excellence anywhere, without the wish to
engraft it on his own style.

So it was with Raphael, with Titian, with Rubens,

ON THE IMITA TION OF ART

37

and with every painter of comprehensive mind. Such
men are as original as the naturalisti, who opposed the
system of the Carracci, and much more universal ; for
they include the principle of the naturalisti, without
their slavery to the peculiarities of a living model taken
without selection. It is remarkable that the Carracci
did not disdain to learn from the naturalisti, while
the latter remained satisfied with their own principle,
which in such hands as those of Caravaggio was very
effective, and where his subjects were from ordinary
Nature, the best of all principles ; for it is clear it did
not hinder him from adopting, from previous Art, what-
ever was congenial with his own mind; so that, in some
degree, even this leader of the naturalisti was eclectic.

There are no such things as incompatible excellences
or beauties ; for as the excellences of a picture are
always relative, so any object, or expression, or shape,
or grace, or colour, however beautiful or perfect in
itself, or any charm of execution, if it does not har-
monise with the work, or if it interferes with the
breadth or unity of the whole, ceases to be a beauty or
an excellence. It is only, therefore, in the hands of
inferior painters that eclecticism can be charged with
incongruity.

But eclecticism has been supposed to foster medio-
crity. And this it will do, if it confine the painter too
much to the imitation of Art, though it be the Art of
the greatest masters. But no truly great artist ever
allowed even the finest pictures to stand between him
and Nature, nor ever permitted any narrow sectarian
preferences to blind him to a single excellence in any
school or master.

38 ON THE IMITATION OF ART

How far the adoption 'of a thought, incident, or
attitude from previous Art is liable to the charge of
plagiarism, has been determined by Fuseli. Wherever
such a translation can be made with a certainty of
improvement, it merits commendation, — wherever
not, let it be given up to the severity of criticism.
Masaccio is not robbed by Raphael, but honoured
and made more known.

At the same time the habit of looking much into
Art for suggestions of incident, attitude, or composi-
tion, is full of the danger of encouraging indolence
and repressing originality. I know that Flaxman,
classical and eclectic as he was, derived the hint of
many of his most elegant compositions and single
figures from the streets and from the drawing-room,
and still more from his own domestic circle ; — and
Stothard spoke of walking the streets for his subjects.

SECTION III

On the Distinction between Laws and Rules

There is a common notion that genius elevates its
possessor above the observance of rules ; a notion that
falls in with the many vague impressions against the
value of teaching in matters of taste, impressions
flattering to indolence and to the vanity that so often
gives to the possessor of a certain degree of imagina-
tion high opinions of his own genius. This notion
and these impressions suggest an examination of the
relative authority of what are very different things,
namely, the laws and the rules of Art.

It is to genius that we owe the discovery of all the
laws of Nature yet known ; and to genius do we look
for future discoveries, or greater accuracy superadded
to our present knowledge. Genius should, therefore,
be the last to violate those principles it has been the
first to make known ; and I believe it will be found
that, so far from genius being lawless, its existence is
proved by a knowledge of, and obedience to, the laws
of Art, such as is never displayed by mere talent or
cleverness, although the latter may often seem to ad-
here most closely to established precedent.

Rubens and Rembrandt are spoken of by Fuseli as

40 ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN

painters who, "disdaining to acknowledge the usual
laws of admission to the Temple of Fame, boldly
forged their own keys, entered, and took possession,
each of a most conspicuous place, by his own power."
This, however, is but a striking mode of pointing out
their great originality; for in another place he assumes
that, had the art of painting been unknown, Rem-
brandt would have discovered it ; thus making him a
legislator in Art ; and this he must have felt also to
be true of Rubens, as it is of every painter so original.

But there is another ground for the notion that
genius is often lawless. There is an order of minds —
and many great ones have belonged to it — liable to be
led by imagination into occasional exaggeration ; and,
as the generality of critics are blind to every excellence
that is out of the beaten track, genius, in its extravagance,
appears to the generality as setting all law at defiance.

The difference, however, between the eccentricities
of great, and those of inferior painters is, that the first
have always a perceptible foundation in Nature, and
are often closely allied to her highest beauties ; while
the last are the result merely of inability to perceive
the truth, joined to the wish to attract notice. It may
be said that exaggeration is least of all excusable in
genius ; and, admitting this, I do but contend that the
wildest extremes of genius are more tolerable than the
extremes by which vulgar minds seek to make them-
selves conspicuous.

Those who are best acquainted with Nature are
always the most ready to tolerate the faults of great
masters. And this will account for cases in which the
opinions of the best artists are at issue with those of

LAWS AND RULES

41

the public. It requires a close and long acquaintance
with Art to penetrate through the disguise of exaggera-
tion to natural principles, and also, in some cases, an
acquaintance with what may be called the handwriting
of great painters, fully to decipher their meaning.
Not but that such peculiarities of execution as are
intelligible only to the initiated are always defects ;
and, . conceding this, a true critic may see, in the
caprices of genius, though the public cannot, that

" the light that led astray

Was light from Heaven."

I conceive there are no absolute laws in Art but
those that are traceable to the laws of Nature ; while
by the rules of Art I understand the many forms or
modes that have accumulated in the practice of schools,
and which, however occasionally valuable, are far from
requiring invariable obedience. " There are," says
Reynolds, " some rules, whose absolute authority, like
those of our nurses, continues no longer than while
we are in a state of childhood. One of the first rules,
for instance, that I believe every master would give to
a young pupil respecting his conduct and manage-
ment of light and shadow, would be what Leonardo
da Vinci has actually given, — that you must oppose a
light ground to the shadowed side of your figure, and
a dark ground to the light side. If Leonardo had
lived to see the superior splendour and effect which
has been since produced by exactly the contrary con-
duct,— by joining light to light, and shadow to shadow,
—though without doubt he would have admired it,
yet, as it ought not, ^o, probably, it would not be the
first rule with which he would have begun his instruc-

42 ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN

tions." Now a very little observation of Nature will
show us that, in her combinations, lights with lights-
and shades with shades are often united, and as often
opposed. Neither principles are, therefore, laws, but
merely methods of producing effect that are eligible or
otherwise as it may happen ; and there seems to me
no good reason why the one should not be pointed out
to the student at as early a period of his practice as
the other.

The question, also debated by the French Academy,
to which Sir Joshua alludes in his fourth discourse,
whether Paul Veronese was right or wrong, in his
picture of Perseus and Andromeda, in representing the
principal figure in shade, was a question merely about
the violation of a rule, in m_ost cases, perhaps, the best
rule, but in no case a law.

In the picture that gave rise to the discussion, the
figure of Andromeda, shaded by the rock to which she
is chained, is opposed to a bright sky which makes her
as much the principal object as if she were in the fullest
light ; and the debate of the Academicians is exactly
that kind of nonsense exposed in the admirable ridicule
of the cant of criticism by Sterne ; which is directed
against the want of judgment and feeling with which
forms and precedents are often insisted on as laws.
Sterne himself deviated from the usual mode of writing,
but he did not deviate from Nature ; and, as his mode
suited his own peculiar humour, we may infer that
he would not have written so naturally in any other.

A well-known rule, and one rarely departed from,
requires that in a composition of more than two or
three figures, one or more should present their backs

LA WS AND RULES

43

to the spectator, to avoid a theatrical or artificial look.
Yet Leonardo da Vinci, in his great work, has entirely
disregarded this rule, although peculiarly applicable to
a subject consisting of a number of persons sitting at
a table. He no doubt felt it to be of far greater
consequence, at the point of time he has chosen, that
the expression of every face in the picture should be
seen ; and who, I would ask, would lose one of those
variously-animated countenances for somewhat more
of probability in the general arrangement? The
subject has been treated by Giotto, by Raphael, more
than once, and it has been painted by Titian, by
Nicolo Poussin, and other masters of less note, and I
believe all have introduced back figures, and in many
instances their arrangements are more picturesque.
Yet not one, not even Raphael, has interested us in
the story like Leonardo.

Another and a very different subject may be men-
tioned— a work of Watteau,^ in which all the ordinary
rules of contrast are departed from, with a result as
charming and as natural as it is novel. Two pretty
little girls, bearing a twin-like resemblance, seem, from
the difference of their sizes, not to have been twins ;
and it was no doubt the object of the painter to show,
as distinctly as possible, their remarkable likeness to
each other ; he therefore placed them side by side,
dressed nearly alike, in attitudes as little varied as
possible, their faces seen directly in front, and with the
same light and shadow. Indeed all the usual contrasts

1 In the collection of Mr. Munro. It is the only picture by
Watteau that I have seen in which the figures are of the size of
life.

44 ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN

of composition, expression, colour, and chiaroscuro are
disregarded ; yet the picture has not in the shghtest
degree any of that pedantic formaUty that so often
affects to pass itself for simplicity. Here the simplicity
is real ; and though Watteau seems not to have thought
of the Art or its rules, yet so consummate an artist
was he, that this production is not less legitimate than
any other of his works, while it is one of the most
original pictures in the world ; and I do not envy the
feelings of those critics who, after admitting that it is
an extremely pretty picture, would dismiss it with the
cold remark that it is only portrait.

Watteau may possibly have been painting these
little girls at the very time in which the members of
the French Academy were proving Paul Veronese to be
wrong in throwing a broad shadow over his Andro-
meda.^ It is such trifling that has brought on
Academies the reproach of a tendency to hinder
rather than promote the advance of the Art, and such
a spirit of criticism that made Constable say, " Never
mind the dogmas of the schools, but get at the heart
as you can."

Dr. Johnson said to Miss Burney, " There are three
distinct kinds of judges upon all new authors or pro-
ductions : the first are those who know no rules, but
pronounce entirely from their natural taste or feeUngs :
the second are tliose who know and judge by rules ;

1 Sir Ed nund Head, in his Handbook of the Spanish and
French Schools," quotes, from Diderot, a very amusing account
of the admission of Greuze into the French Academy, in which
additional light is thrown on the notions then entertained by
that body.

LAIVS AND RULES

45

and the third are those who know, but are above the
rules. These last are those you should wish to satisfy.
Next to them rate the natural judges ; but ever despise
those opinions that are formed by rules." What Dr.
Johnson here meant by rules may be gathered from
his preface to Shakspeare, and particularly from those
passages in which he defends the violation, by the
great dramatist, of the unities of time and place, and
his unclassical mixture of comedy with tragedy. Of
Shakspeare's attention to the laws of Nature he thus
speaks : — " He was an exact surveyor of the inanimate
world ; his descriptions have always some peculiarities
gathered by contemplating things as they really exist.
. . . . Whether life or nature be his subject, he
shows plainly that he has seen with his own eyes ;
he gives the image which he receives, not weakened
or distorted by the intervention of any other mind.
The ignorant feel his representations to be just,
and the learned see that they are complete." Thus
he vindicates Shakspeare's faithful observance of the
laws, while he fully justifies the wisdom of his
dispensing with some of the established rules of
dramatic Art.

It is the unfailing mark of a superior mind that,
without contemning forms, it knows exactly when to
break through them in obedience to great principles ;
and the occasions have been frequent enough in which
such minds have encountered obloquy from the for-
malists of the world for the best actions. Every one's
recollection will suggest instances of this, and some
that it might be irreverent here to mention : but to
take a trifling one, the story of the king (Louis XIV.

46 ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN

I believe) and the gentleman who stepped into the
carriage before him, rather than keep his majesty wait-
ing through ceremony, is as good an illustration of the
sacrifice of a form to a principle as the most lofty example.

The prosperity of Art can only be promoted by the
strictest observance of its laws and the proper use of
its rules, — the first tested by the principles which are
unalterable in Nature, the last by their admission of
exceptions. The former are comparatively few and
simple, while the name of the latter is legion, being
accumulated from the varieties of practice of many
artists; and students are therefore constantly per-
plexed by the various dogmas, often indeed con-
tradictory, or apparently so, that are advanced by
those of their companions who are a little before
them. 'No doubt many valuable things are thus
learned; but the great difficulty, at first, is to dis-
tinguish between the precepts that are founded in
truth and the many that are merely empiricah I
have known modest genius in early life defer to
plausible but inferior minds, and submit to trammels
that have affected, in some degree disadvantageously,
the practice of an entire life.

There is, I believe, a good deal of what may be
called honest quackery among painters ; quackery, I
mean, which those who practise it mistake for sound
doctrine. One safeguard against this is, to beware of
all rules that promise an easy acquirement of the Art,
and to mistrust our own dexterity when we find it
saving us the labour of thought. In the first discourse
of Reynolds are some excellent remarks on that
specious facility so often injurious to the young artist,

LA WS AND RULES

47

and the assurance from him that "there is no easy
way of becoming a good painter," — from him, who
had mastered with such apparent ease so many of the
greatest difficulties, — should never be forgotten.

As it is impossible to enumerate the rules that
abound in books, or that are given out in the con-
versation of painters, I will point to some instances
of how far well-known rules are of authority, that may
assist the student in judging of others when he may
for the first time hear them. The leading principle
of composition that applies equally to form, to colour,
and to light and shade — the principle, namely, of
subordination by which one mass is always the largest
and no two exactly equal, or, as West used to express
it, "struggling with each other," — is assuredly not a
conventional principle, but founded entirely on natural
law. With respect to forms, perspective is the chief
agent of subordination, as it is often with respect to
masses of colour, of fight and shade ; and, where it is
not, the principles of the reflection, the transmission,
and the interruptions of light, produce gradation, which
is subordination.

This principle is therefore an invariable one ; and
from which, I will venture to say, no departure can be
found in the works of any great master after the matu-
rity of painting. But it must be remarked that, though
the laws of Nature have been best obeyed by the best
artists, the principles resulting from them are not always
ostentatiously conspicuous in their works; and, indeed,
Art is always the more perfect in the degree in which
its impression is made by means that do not court
notice. Wilkie remarks that he stood before the

48 ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN

" Peter Martyr " of Titian, and found it not easy to
ascertain which was the predominant light of the
picture; and the same difficulty may be felt before
other works of the greatest masters, where, however,
the subtilty with which the principle is concealed is
rather an excellence than a defect. Had Wilkie said
that the " Peter Martyr " wanted breadth, or that its
chiaroscuro distracted or perplexed the eye, this would
have been saying that the natural laws of subordina-
tion, as they regard light and shade, were violated.
I am only acquainted with this great work from
copies ; but from these, and from all I have read and
heard of it, I cannot doubt but that it is, in every re-
spect, one of the most perfect pictures in the world,
as well as one of the grandest.

An objection has been made to Raphael's " Dispute
of the Sacrament " like Wilkie's doubt as to the pre-
dominant light in the " Peter Martyr." Dr. Kugler,
who does not find fault with the entire separation of
the two portions of this great work, thinks that
"neither predominates by its mass; that neither,
properly speaking, is the principle." But here, as in
the " Peter Martyr," though the two great masses are
nearly equal in quantity, their forms are dissimilar, and
the upper portion is unquestionably, as it should be,
the principle. Of the remark of Fuseli, that the pic-
ture is "cut sheer asunder," I shall have something
to say in another place.

West, in his later practice, followed a rule in the
arrangement of his colours founded on the order of
colours in the rainbow. But I remember that in his
house I saw a smalU^copy, by himself, of the "Peter

LAIVS AND RULES

49

Martyr," in which I observed that the colours were
placed contrary to their disposition in the rainbow ;
the largest quantity of blue, namely, in the sky, being
on the side on which the light enters. I noticed this
to him, and he said, " Titian had so fine an eye that
he could produce harmony by any arrangement " — a
reply which places all theories that make harmony de-
pendent on any one system of composition, in the
category of mere forms or modes, and not of laws.

Fifty years ago amateur and drawing-school practice
was beset with rules, at many of which a painter of the
present day would smile, and some of these were even
countenanced by Reynolds. In what was considered
the higher and more poetic style of landscape, accidents
(as they were called), for instance partial gleams of
sunshine, were forbidden ; and Sir Joshua considered
that Claude omitted such effects on principle. But I
believe that where Claude has not availed himself of
such beauties of effect, he was guided by no other
principle than his feeling, that the sentiment of the
picture did not require, and would be disturbed by
them; for it is not conceivable that he considered
any of the accidental appearances of Nature unworthy
of the highest class of Art, if judiciously introduced.

Then there were Sir George Beaumont's rules, that
in every landscape there should be at least one brown
tree ; and that every picture should have a first, second,
and third light. " I see," he said, looking at a picture
by Constable, " your first and your second lights, but
I can't make out which is your third." Constable told
this to Turner, who said, "You should have asked him
how many lights Rubens introduced."

E

SECTION IV

On Classification

Charles Lamb, in his "Essay on Hogarth,"^ notices
" that rage for classification, by which," as he says, "in
matters of taste at least, we are perpetually perplexing
instead of arranging our ideas." For my own part, I
have long since been accustomed to disregard classi-
fication in Art, according to subject; and, as in
Sancho Panza's story, wherever the great man sat was
the head of the table, so — when I stand before that
which impresses me as the work of a truly great painter,
it belongs for the time being (in my mind) to the
highest class of Art, let the subject be what it will. I
say for the time betJig^ — for I always recur to Michael
Angelo and Raphael as the greatest of painters ; not
because they painted the most sublime subjects, — for
hundreds who are now as nothing have done the same,
— but because they brought the loftiest minds to
whatever subject they treated.

The Art of every painter is modified by his feelings
as much as by his intellect. Michael Angelo and
Raphael lived in the most splendid, and at the same
time the most corrupt, age of modern Rome. The

1 The best ever written ; though it is to be regretted that, in
praising Hogarth, he thought fit to disparage Reynolds.

ON CLASSIFICATION

51

temperament of Michael Angelo disposed him to soli-
tude ; he knew and despised the world about him, and
lived apart from it. But there was nothing cynical or
morose in the character of this great man. He was
warm-hearted, steady in his friendships, and sincerely
religious in an age, as Roscoe well calls it, "of
practical atheism." His attachment to his servant,
Urbino, whom he waited on and nursed in his last
illness, though he was then 82 years of age, is one
among many proofs of the goodness and warmth of his
heart ; and the sincerity of his religion is not only seen
in his sonnets, but confirmed by the fact, that, for the
last seventeen years of his life, he devoted himself to
the building of St. Peter's, entirely as a work of piety,
refusing to receive any payment for his services.

Raphael, raised also above the world by every
generous and noble feeling, yet lived in the midst of
it, respected and beloved by all whose respect and
love were worth the having. " He had always," says
Lanzi, " possessed the power of engaging the affections
of all with whom he was acquainted. Respectful to
his master, he obtained from the Pope an assurance
that his works on the ceiling of the Vatican should
remain unmolested; — ^just towards his rivals, he ex-
pressed his gratitude to God that he had been born in
the days of Michael Angelo ; — gracious towards his
pupils, he loved them, and entrusted them as his sons ;
— courteous to strangers, he cheerfully lent his aid to
all who asked his advice; — and in order to make
designs for others, or to direct them in their studies, he
sometimes even neglected his own work — being alike
incapable of refusing or delaying his inestimable aid."

52 ON CLASSIFICATION

Such were these wonderful men, alike in their
greatness, yet with so much of difference in tempera-
ment, that they could not but affect us differently by
their works. "We stand with awe before Michael
Angelo," says Fuseli, " and tremble at the height to
which he elevates us, — we embrace Raphael and
follow him whithersoever he chooses to lead us." But
I shall reserve, for the present, what I have further to
say of them. I have merely noticed the resemblance
and difference of their natures, as accounting for the
resemblance and difference of their Art.

When Sterne's critic speaks of the " Correggeisity of
Correggio,'' the absurdity is in the sound and by no
means in the sense ; for such words as Raphaelesque,
Titianesque, and Michael Angelesque are naturalised
and indispensable to the language of criticism ; — nor
do I hesitate to say that every painter, — good — bad
— and indifferent, — equally expresses his own nature
in his Art ; for the most exact, the most servile imi-
tator, in the endeavour to appropriate to himself the
mind of another, displays the poverty of his own.

This influence is what the Germans call the sub-
jective element, an element that leads to all that is
most valuable in the imitation of Nature, or to all
that is the reverse.

It may be said that among painters, and great
ones, the minds of some are often not easily distin-
guishable, as in the cases of Giorgione and Titian.
I am not sufficiently acquainted with the works of
Giorgione or the early style of Titian to pronounce
with certainty what I believe to be true, that an in-
timate knowledge would enable a competent judge

ON CLASSIFICATION

53

to distinguish between them in every case. It must
be remembered that Giorgione died young, and there
are instances of artists, contemporaries, who, up to
the time of Hfe at which he and Titian were separated,
as closely resembled each other, but who afterwards
displayed a marked difference of character. There
are pictures by Rubens and by Vandyke, which may
readily be mistaken for the work of either, yet how
diverse do the powers of their minds appear when
the products of the life of each are compared. Paul
Veronese painted a " Nativity,'' in evident close imi-
tation of the Bassans, — of whose style he was so
great an admirer, that he placed his son as a pupil
with Giacomo ; yet the gentility of Paulo is apparent
through the disguise ; and I have seen skilful imita-
tions by David Teniers of different masters, but in
which he is always discoverable.

A resemblance in the styles of painters of very
different minds is the result of another influence, that
of the country and the age to which they belong.
But the Art is a tell-tale, and no painter can effectu-
ally conceal himself in it from those who understand
its language; and of all the qualities of the mind,
there is nothing more sure to be betrayed by the
pencil than innate vulgarity, — no matter with how
high an aim, or with how much of learning or of
technical power it endeavours to pass for what is
lofty. On the other hand, a mind is sometimes dis-
covered by the Art, alone, to be superior to any pre-
judgment that might be formed from our knowledge
of the education or personal habits of the individual.

Of this, I know not a more remarkable instance

54 ON CLASSIFICATION

than Morland, whose works display a natural refine-
ment of taste which, as in the best Dutch Art, is the
more striking from the homely character of his sub-
jects. When we look at his pictures, we must con-
clude that the dissolute habits, which in the prime of
life destroyed this extraordinary man, were in great
part to be attributed to the denial of all education to
him, excepting in Art, by a sordid father ; and which
greatly increased, if it did not produce, that shyness
of manner which drove him from decent society to
the alehouse and the stable ; while it left him unfur-
nished with any resources of relaxation excepting in
low indulgence. But whatever were the failings of
Morland, and however to be accounted for, there is
no vulgarity in his Art. He is always homely, often
slight to a fault, and it is said he was employed by a
patron to paint a series of immoral pictures; — yet
such is the refinement of his colour, and his true
feeling for the simplicity of Nature, that his best
works will always sustain companionship with those
of Gainsborough, which can be said of no painter in
the least degree vulgar. Vulgarity, as Lord Byron
has clearly shown, and I think he was the first to
point out the distinction, is a very different thing
from coarseness. "Fielding,*' as he says, "is often
coarse, but never vulgar ; " and the same may be said
of Hogarth, of Jan Steen, and indeed of all the best
Dutch and Flemish painters.

The essence of vulgarity is pretension; and it,
therefore, generally aspires to the high places of Art,
where it shows itself in every species of false senti-
ment. It greatly affects the superfine, — it produces

ON CLASSIFICATION

55

the mock heroic, — and all the numerous mistakes of
the exaggerated for the grand and the poetic.

The vulgarity of pretension is often apparent in
the modern treatment of religious subjects ; but the
most remarkable subversion of the Art by vulgarity,
for it was vulgarity mixed with the highest refine-
ments of vice, occurred in France in the reign of
Louis the Fifteenth. It began, indeed, under that of
his predecessor, a monarch who fancied he showed
his taste by ordering the works of Teniers out of his
rooms. It was natural that the Court from which
such sterling Art was banished should be the one
from which Nicolo Poussin chose to banish himself.
But the sovereign found a painter to his mind in
Lebrun, a man of great ability, but essentially
commonplace, though showy and pompous. The
style of Lebrun reigned supreme under royal patron-
age, and met with a host of imitators, until, still fol-
lowing the court fashions, French Art degenerated
into that utter vulgarity which characterised it in the
reign of Louis the Fifteenth, under a surface of the
amiable, the genteel, and what passed for the grace-
ful. The exquisite taste of Watteau was, as might be
expected, cast into the shade in this age of general
corruption. But for his subjects he would have been
as much out of place in France as Nicolo Poussin
felt himself to be. He contrived, however, to unite
the Opera with Nature (no easy task), and he there-
fore painted what fell in with the taste of the times,
— and yet has remained the delight of succeeding
ages. The merits of Watteau, indeed, are such as
almost to cover the multitude of sins, in Art, of the

56 ON CLASSIFICA TION

times in which he Uved,— and this is saying much.
There exist always Lebruns, Coypels, Bouchers,
Rigauds, and Lancrets, and many of them, though
not always detected under the disguises of the time ;
while such painters as Poussin and Watteau are
ever rare, and often in danger of being jostled aside
by their more successful, though inferior, rivals.

I must remark that there is always a correspond-
ence in the taste for colour and chiaroscuro and the
taste in all the other elements of Painting. Thus,
in these qualities, if Poussin is unequal, he is, in his
best works, far above Lebrun, — and of Watteau, I
need not say that in these, as well as in all technical
skill, he is transcendent ; and when we consider the
difficulty that even genius finds in withstanding the
influence of fashion, it is wonderful that he should
have achieved what he did in the atmosphere in
which he lived ; and through which he shines like a
diamond surrounded by counterfeit gems.

The objective^ according to the German classifica-
tion, includes all that relates to the subject of the
picture uninfluenced by the mind of the painter. But,
strictly speaking, there can be no such thing ; there
can only be an approach to such an element, and the
results of photography have been instanced as the
nearest parallel to objective Art. Yet even these are
not wholly objective, being always modified by peculi-
arities of taste. Points of view and points of distance,
and effects of light and of shadow, are selected, with
more or less judgment, in landscape and architecture ;
and in portrait there is the same exercise of taste, in
the choice of attitude, grouping, casting of drapery, etc.

ON CLASSIFICATION

57

Properly speaking, it is Nature herself only that is
objective or the object of Art ; while all that is ideal
or poetic, as well as all that is mannered, mean, low,
false, or vicious in painting, is subjective.

The Art of Caravaggio and of Rembrandt may
seem to be peculiarly subjective, and yet no painter
was ever more objective than the first, in his pictures
of gamblers, fortune-tellers, etc. ; nor than Rembrandt
in his portraits, a very large and important (by some
critics thought the most important) portion of his
works. Fuseli has been mentioned as a painter in
whom the subjective tendency was entirely paramount ;
and yet his ghosts and demons are, to the imagination,
more truly ghosts and demons than those of any
other painter ; and if an artist is to be ranked accord-
ing to that in which he best succeeds, Fuseli should
be classed with objective painters. Even Blake, a
more extreme instance of a very singular mind, was
convinced that he saw the illustrious dead, as well as
angels and demons, of whom he drew exact portraits,
and indeed most if not all of the productions of Blake,
were believed by himself, at least, to be strictly objec-
tive. I confess, therefore, I do not see how painters
are to be classed according to either of these tenden-
cies ; for if I am right in considering all Art as equally
subjective, though (apparently) that of certain painters
may be more so than that of others, it must happen
that where the subject of the picture is entirely con-
genial with the mind of the artist, the result will com-
bine, in perfect equality, both elements, and such are
the instances in which every great master is best seen.

Nothing is more often on the lips of those who

58 ON CLASSIFICATION

feel and know least of the qualities of which Painting
is made than "High Art," — and the result of more
than forty years' observation has convinced me, that
nothing has contributed more to retard the advance-
ment of Painting than the well-meant, but often
thoughtless and mistaken talk about what passes for
it, both in England and on the Continent.

The commonplace notion of High Art contributed
with other mental causes to the life of misery of the
highly-gifted Haydon, as it had previously prevented
the proper exercise of Barry's superior powers ; and
many were the junior artists, who, with this ignis
fatuus before their eyes, wasted time, and probably
talents that might otherwise have been productive,
upon large Cartoons for Westminster Hall. Indeed,
many English painters have passed through lives of
privation, consoled only with the belief that they were
practising " High Art " in evil days, who might have
been prosperous men in some other profession.

Englishmen are constantly told by foreigners, and
are constantly telling themselves, that High Art has
never existed in England. True it is, there has been
no British Michael Angelo, or Raphael, any more than
there have been painters approaching to them in the
modern schools of Italy, France, Germany, or Holland.
But the Art of Hogarth, of Reynolds, of Gainsborough,
of Wilson, of Fuseli, of Opie, Stothard, Turner, Con-
stable, W'.lkie, and of Etty, and the Art displayed in
Haydon's " Judgment of Solomon," ^ — what are we to

1 Had such a picture been produced in France, it would have
been placed in the Louvre immediately on the death of the painter.

ON CLASSIFICATION

59

call it ? — I care not what, but I will say that, out of
Great Britain, nothing so high has been produced
since the death of Watteau ; whose Art, distinct from
its subject, is of the highest order.

Latterly, the term " High " has generally been ex-
changed for " Religious," which means Art of which
the subjects are from the Bible or the legends of the
Church. I should make no objection to the defini-
tion as a matter of convenience, and if understood no
otherwise than of Art of which the theme is religious.
But, I fear, it is too much received, and intended
as defining a style necessarily differing from other
styles.

It is clear to me, that had any of the early Christian
painters descended to subjects of familiar life, their
treatment would not, in principle or in execution,
have differed from that in their religious pictures,
for in their portraits it did not. I think, therefore,
that the attaching of more importance than they
deserve, to such definitions as religious Art^ and reli-
gious painters^ is calculated to blind us to many of the
beauties of Nature, and to lead us to suppose that
because, by the early masters, some of her grandest
and most charming qualities were unperceived, they
are inconsistent with religious feeling ; and that there

But the Trustees of our National Gallery missed the opportunity
of securing it, for a nominal sum, while they were spending the
public money on doubtful, or damaged, or second-rate pictures
by the Old Masters.

Whatever may be the faults of this great work of Haydon, it
would sustain itself with credit by the side of Rubens and his
faults ; and it will be disgraceful to the country, if it does not
ultimately find a resting-place in the National Gallery.

6o

ON CLASSIFICATION

must be a marked difference between religious men,
women, and children, and the rest of the world ; and
that even skies, trees, fields, rivers, and mountains
may become religious and therefore sublime, by their
unlikeness to Nature.^ Severe is a word sometimes
used, and I have heard also of keroic landscape. Such
classifications are calculated to mislead the young,
while they may be easily taken advantage of by the
indolent and cunning, who, with little study or
thought, may at once put themselves forward as re-
ligious painters, by some mannered deviation from
Nature.

The tendency of modern classification is levelling.
It places inferior excellence, if not in the same rank
with the highest order of genius, yet so near it as
greatly to mislead the student. There are critics who
seem tired of hearing Raphael called " the Just," and
who would give to Perugino, Francia, Masaccio, and
others of the early Italians, a much larger share of his
honours than is properly due to them. It matters
little whether we consider the difference between him
and them as a difference of kind or of degree ; for if
it be only the last, it is certainly as wide a difference,
and of as many degrees, as that which separates
Shakspeare from all preceding and all succeeding
dramatists. The painters I have mentioned no doubt
resemble Raphael in many of the outward forms of
Art, and his master, Perugino, may, as I have been

1 I have heard the singular little forms meant for clouds be-
hind the heads of the Madonna and Saints of Francia, in the
National Gallery, commended, because it seems impossible they
could be affected by storms ! — which is very true.

ON CLASSIFICATION

6i

told he does, often surpass him in colour. But where
have they given any evidence of that knowledge of
human nature, or of that power of expressing the
characters and the passions of men, that so justly en-
titles Raphael to be called, as Fuseli calls him, " the
painter of mankind " ?

Take, for instance, the greatest of them, Mas-
accio. The subject of one of the most important
of his works, said to be his last, is the resuscitation of
a boy, a supposed miracle of St. Peter and St. Paul.
The composition has all that natural simplicity so
characteristic of the painter. But the incident, the
most extraordinary that can be conceived, produces
no effect on the people who witness it; and they
stand by as unmoved, with the exception of a little
girl (who clasps her hands), as if a restoration from
death to life were a matter of no interest, and of
every-day occurrence. And this is the work of a
painter, who, though no critic would place him on a
level with Raphael, yet, according to established classi-
fication, must rank, as a master of High Art^ with
the author of the frescoes of the Vatican, and the
cartoons at Hampton Court. For my own part, I feel
that it would be more just, and would enable us to
understand the true scope of Art better, to class
Ostade with Raphael. I say nothing of Rembrandt,
because I consider his Art to be of a much higher
order than that of any Italian, excepting only Leonardo
da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Raphael, and the greatest
of the Venetian painters.

As I do not think such painters as Masaccio, Peru-
gino, Francia, and many others of their rank, are to

62

ON CLASSIFICATION

be placed in the same category with the greatest
masters, so neither do I think that such later Italians
as Carlo Dolci, Carlo Marratti, etc., deserve by any
means to rank with them. And yet the Art of these
last, if classed according to subject, is High Art;
while, in truth, there is not much deserving the name
of Painting that can well be lower.

SECTION V

On Self-Teaching

Fashion is the substitute for taste, with which it
sometimes coincides. Articles of dress and furniture
may be elegant and yet fashionable, and a poet or a
painter may be great, and, at the same time, noticed
by what is called the great world. Reynolds was
twice in fashion, and Burns was the lion of a season
in Edinburgh ; but such instances are chances, not
invariable results. The constant craving of fashion is
for the new and the wonderful, and nothing brings a
young artist more suddenly into notice than a report
of his being entirely self-taught.

Those who know little of the history of Painting,
generally understand these words literally, " in which
sense," said Constable, "a self-taught painter is one
taught by a very ignorant person^ There can, in truth,
be no such prodigy in Europe, nor, indeed, in any
part of the world, where painting even in its most
primitive stages exists. Opie, who was himself be-
lieved to be a wonder of this kind, places in a strong
light the insignificance of the power to be attained
without precept or example. " On such a hypothesis,''
he says, " it would be the height of absurdity to speak
of the progress or cultivation of Art ; the coming of

64 ON SELF- TEA CHING

a poet or a painter would be altogether accidental or
providential, and the greatest artist might as probably
have been Adam, or the first man that ever saw a
pencil, as Apelles or Raphael, though born under the
most favourable circumstances, when the Art was in
its zenith. Nor ought we to have been more sur-
prised, had Captain Cook found a Rubens carrying
painting to perfection in Otaheite, than our ancestors
were at seeing one doing the same thing in Flanders."

The young painter who, in the present day, should
appear with any degree of ability, and yet deny his
obligations to previous or contemporary Painters,
would assuredly " say the thing that is not ; " for no
one can by any accident have been isolated from
pictures or engravings, and yet have acquired the
power of producing anything deserving the name of
a picture.

Opie, as I have remarked, was supposed to be a
self-taught artist ; and as he had as much claim to be
so considered as any painter that ever lived, some
attention to the particulars of his early life may help
us to understand in what self-education really consists.

He was born in 1761 at the village of St. Agnes,
about seven miles from the town of Truro, in Corn-
wall, where we may suppose there was very little of Art
to be seen. He did, however, see, when very young
a schoolfellow draw a butterfly, and said he thought
he could draw a butterfly as well as Mark Gates.

At an early age he was employed as an errand-boy
by Dr. Wolcot, who, whatever were his faults, was a
man of sound taste. But Wolcot was not the first to
discover the genius of his errand-boy ; for the extra-

ON SELF- TEA CHING

65

ordinary powers of his mind were disclosed to all about
him from a very early period. At the age of twelve
he had mastered Euclid, and become the teacher of
an evening school.

There can be no doubt, however, that Wolcot was
Opie's first instructor in Art, and that he, who was
very far from an incompetent teacher himself, directed
him to a much higher source, the works of Reynolds.
Wolcot had lived some years in London, and his love
of painting had brought him acquainted with the
principal artists. How truly he felt the excellence of
Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Wilson, and at a time
when their reputations were far from being so securely
established as they now are, his writings show. He
probably had opportunities of intercourse with them
all. I know that he possessed a fine picture by Sir
Joshua, the " Sleeping Girl," now in the collection of
Mr. Rogers. Beside this, he had some copies from
Reynolds, and no doubt most of the prints from his
best works. Some of these, we may believe, were on
his walls, or in his folio at Truro, when the connection
between him and Opie commenced. From Wolcot,
or in his house, he could easily acquire a sufficient
knowledge of anatomy, with which his works show
him not to be unacquainted. The only knowledge
important to a painter of which he was ignorant when
he came to London, was a knowledge of the Antique.
His Art, therefore, from the first belonged to the
school of the Naturalisti, and so it remained. If
Opie came to London a competent artist, and formed,
as were all the best painters of the time, very much
from the influence of Reynolds, he soon enlarged his

F

66 ON SELF- TEA CHING

perceptions from seeing the works of Fuseli, the eva-
nescent negative colour of whose best pictures he
greatly admired. The influence of Fuseli told on his
later practice ; but, on his first arrival in London, he
began, as he had done in the country, with portraits ;
and there can be no doubt that Wolcot, by his pen,
chiefly promoted the sudden notoriety of the " Cor-
nish Wonder."

The street in which he lived was very soon so
crowded with the coaches of the nobility that he was
considered a nuisance in the neighbourhood. As
might be expected, however, from the fickleness of all
patronage bestowed on wonders, he was almost as
suddenly deserted ; and fortunately for his reputation,
for then it was that he was taken by the hand by a
truly noble patron of British Art, one indeed whose
influence on Painting and Engraving in this country
can scarcely be overrated.

It is said of Alderman Boydell, and I believe with
truth, that "he contrived to employ every aspirant to
distinction, in these arts, whose energies wanted en-
couragement." He was himself an artist, and his
love of the profession he chose may be judged of by
the fact that, at the age of twenty-one, he walked
from Stanton, in Shropshire, to London, against the
wishes of his father, to put himself apprentice to an
engraver. That by his own exertions he rose to fame
and fortune is less his praise than that he very greatly
assisted other artists in their rise to eminence ; men,
too, whom he helped to surpass himself, in his own
profession. The Shakspeare Gallery, though the
greatest undertaking of Bo} dell, formed but a portion

ON SELF-TEACHING

67

of his patronage of Art. This magnificent scheme
was an additional means of employing the best
painters of the British school in large and important
works at a time when the Church refused to patronise
Painting/ and the titled and wealthy of the land,
with the single exception of the king, encouraged
portrait only. It did much also for Engraving ; and,
among other admirable specimens of that Art, we
owe to the Shakspeare Gallery, Sharpe's transcendent
work from West's "Lear," a work showing that the
power of a first-rate engraver, even of other men's
designs, does not lie within the scope of mere talent ;
but that it is genius^ and of a higher order than that
displayed by many a painter, who looks upon en-
gravers as artists much below him.

Boydell built, for the reception of his pictures, the
rooms in Pall Mall, now belonging to the British
Institution, and employed the greatest sculptor then
living to decorate the front. It was his intention to
bequeath the building and its contents to the nation.
But the outbreak of the French Revolution, by
stopping entirely the sale of his prints on the Con-

1 Northcote, in his very amusing history of "The Slighted
Beauty " (Painting), thus contrasts her exclusion from our
churches with the favour shown to her Stony-hearted brazen-
faced sister " (Sculpture), of whom he says, " She would make
no scruple at any time to sap the principal pillars for support,
root up the foundation, build up partition walls in the aisles,
cover the pavement, etc. . . . One thing, however, must
be allowed in favour of this sister, she always spoke well of the
dead. Thus, for instance, she would get up in the midst of the
church, and, in her own way, make long harangues in various
languages, filled with flattery and falsehood, praising the dead
to gratify the living."

68

ON SELF- TEA CHING

tinent, where it had been extensive, and the war that
followed diminishing the demand for them at home,
his means were so crippled, that he was unable to
fulfil his patriotic wish.

To the honour of Boydell, it should always be
remembered that the project of the Shakspeare
Gallery originated in his wish to disprove the opinion
held by foreigners, that English artists were incapable
of excelling in historic or poetic subjects ; an opinion
that had entire possession of the minds of our aristo-
cratic and wealthy classes, and which had forced
Hogarth to address himself to the public through the
medium of engraving.

When Opie, the plain, blunt, honest man of genius,
was deserted by the world of fashion, Boydell en-
gaged him in those works on which his fame now
rests, the best of which, and one of the greatest works
of the British School, is his " Death of David Rizzio,"
a picture that, instead of being buried in the Council
Chamber, at Guildhall, should be seen in the National
Gallery.

His love of Art was intense. It was said of him
that, " as other artists painted to live, he lived only to
paint." His life, indeed, seems to have been shortened
by his industry. Had he worked less hard or been
less ambitious to excel, he might now be living. Yet
he was modest, and long after the " Death of Rizzio
was produced, he would exclaim to his wife, in
moments of depression, " I shall never, never make a
painter."

Dissatisfaction with himself, however, no doubt
contributed, as will ever be the case with a strong

ON SELF- TEA CHING

69

mind, to his excellence ; it is the feeble who are liable
to be discouraged into nothingness, while the con-
ceited are apt to be elated into the same condition.
The occasional despondency of such a man as Opie
only rouses him to fresh exertion, and his history is
a fair illustration of the true sense in which a great
painter is self-taught, a sense, indeed, in which all
great painters, men who know what they want, and
who know where to look for it, are so. Their best
instructors being often those they never saw.

Michael Angelo was taught the mechanical practice
of painting by Ghirlandajo ; but the master who com-
pletely awakened his imagination to the grandeur that
was to become his distinction, was the unknown
sculptor of that "mass of breathing stone" which
refuses any other condition than that of a fragment.^

Raphael was first the pupil of his father, then of
Perugino, but had he stopped where the last left him,
instead of seeking further instruction from every
source of beauty and truth in Art and Nature that
was within his reach, he would never have placed
himself where he is, nearer to our hearts than any
other painter that ever lived. The true masters of
Rubens were Michael Angelo and Titian, and certainly
no one was less the master of Reynolds than Hudson,
in whose house he was placed as a pupil.

When Sir Joshua says to the student, " If you have
great abilities, industry will improve them," he says
well, but it is to be regretted that he also said, " If
you have not, industry will supply their place.''

1 If Flaxman failed, as he himself thought, in his attempt to
restore the Torso, who can hope to succeed?

70

ON SELF- TEA CHING

When, however, at another time, he tells us that
"nothing is denied to well-directed industry," he
gives a comprehensive definition of genius in the
last three words; for the industry of all the great
painters I have mentioned was directed, as it could
only be well directed, by that native mental superiority
which the world has agreed to call genius.

SECTION VI

On Genius^ Imagination^ and Taste

Genius seems to be a rare co-existence of many facul-
ties ; or perhaps it may be more correct to say that
the co-existence of many faculties is necessary to its
development ; and, as these vary in every individual,
the genius of no two has ever been exactly alike.
It seems also that the absence, or subordination of
some of the intellectual tastes may be serviceable to
the exercise of genius ; for Leonardo da Vinci, whose
life was a long one, has left fewer specimens than any
other painter, of that Art, of which he was so great
an ornament, because he was almost a universal
genius.

In connection with Painting it may be useful to
consider two qualities, which, if they do not alone
constitute genius, are essential to it, — Imagination
and Taste.

Imagination seems to be a power to which in-
struction can scarcely reach, and if in any degree
amenable to direction, it can only be so through
Taste, a faculty that is admitted to be capable of
much improvement by cultivation.

By Taste, in its most perfect condition, I under-
stand a result from the union of the best sense with

72 ON GENIUS,

the most perfect senses, and the truest sensibility.
It includes a knowledge and love of the good as well
as of the beautiful, for material beauty can never be
truly felt but by him who knows also what is moral
beauty. Imagination may be considered as the
active power of Genius— Taste as the controlling and
directing power. It is the temperance which Shak-
speare recommended to the actors in their bursts of
passion ; but, as he also told them, it is not tameness,
— neither is it mere fastidiousness, much less timidity.
It will dare everything for a great end, but it never
seeks merely to astonish, — nor is it ever presumptuous.
It is a power that estimates all things, relatively as
well as singly, and therefore it is not exclusive; it
objects not to ugliness or deformity, but it assigns to
them their proper places. It objects only to false-
hood ; and this it detects as readily under the most
magnificent disguises as when it affects the most child-
like simplicity.

It would be easy to expatiate on the attributes of
Taste until it might be said I had proved that no
man had ever possessed it ; which is indeed true of a
perfectly just taste ; for, in the noblest works of Art,
there exist flaws from the want of it, and which are
in a great degree traceable to partial cultivation and
the accidents of local position and defective edu-
cation.

I have no hesitation in saying that every artist,
whose name has lived, owes his immortality more to
the excellence of his taste than to any other single
endowment, because it displays all the rest to their
fullest advantage ; and without it his mind would be

IMAGINATION, AND TASTE

73

imperfectly seen; and if Taste be not the highest
gift of the painter, it is, I think, the rarest.

The lofty imagination of Raphael, the wonderful
fertility of his invention, with all his extraordinary
dramatic power and his deep knowledge of human
nature, would never have made him what he is, had it
not been for that indescribable natural urbanity, that
true decorum which we can only associate with the
purest taste, and which pervades every work of his
hand, from his earliest attempts to the grandest of his
frescoes. And the decorum of Raphael's mind is
shown, not in his avoiding subjects which a less
natural man might be afraid of, but in his treatment
of every class of subject.

Compare, for instance, his "Galatea" with the
same subject by Annibale Carracci, of which the
National Gallery has the cartoon. In academic
excellence the work of Annibale is not inferior to
that of Raphael; but, without anything of affected
prudery, there is a modesty in Raphael's picture,
which by contrast would vulgarise works even less
gross than that of the Bolognese painter.

It is Taste only that can settle the difficult question
of finish. A young painter, in the midst of a fine
collection of pictures, is puzzled by seeing so wide a
separation between great masters in the degree of
attention they have given to minutiae; but he will
learn, as he becomes acquainted with the Art, that
all pictures are finished if the intention of the master
be fully conveyed ; and that details may be omitted
by Velasquez, or introduced by Terburg, and the
effect be equally satisfactory, because, whatever the

74

ON GENIUS,

one gives or the other leaves out, is given or omitted
under the guidance of an exquisite taste. Who, for
instance, while standing before the " Boar Hunt " by
Velasquez, in our National Gallery, would desire more
than he finds in it ; or in looking at the " Blue
Boddice " by Terburg, in Her Majesty's Collection,
would regret that the finish has been carried so far ?

In speaking of Taste, hitherto, I have assumed 'the
meaning that always accompanies the word when used
by itself, — that is, good Taste. But good Taste may
be considered as the exception, and bad, or, rather,
mixed Taste as the rule. In cold or phlegmatic
natures. Taste is satisfied with insipid correctness,
hence mediocrity; but ardent temperaments have
always strong relishes, and if these are not by Nature
or education directed to what is true, their tendency
will be to the false and the exaggerated. I need not
say that the best and worst tastes have often been
united in the same men ; and where great powers of
invention and execution are joined to a false but
plausible taste, the possessor of them is able to corrupt
an age. Indeed, as Art appears to have sometimes
risen to a great height at the bidding of a single com-
manding mind of rightly -directed powers, it has at
other times sunk into corruption by the no less power-
ful influence of a single mind possessed of the ability
to give to falsehood the appearance of truth.

Not but that there are always concurring circum-
stances in the state of society to facilitate either the
ready admission of truth or of falsehood, and these
act upon leaders as leaders again act on the multi-
tude; and this affords a clue to one cause of the

IMAGINATION, AND TASTE

75

irregular progress of Art, — a progress marked, ever
since Painting may be said to have reached its
maturity, by alternate periods of great vigour with
periods of decay, sometimes verging on dissolution.

It is consolatory to know, however, that in most
countries in which Painting has achieved great
triumphs, the achievement has not always been for
once only, though it is of great importance to notice
that different periods of excellence have always been
marked by different characters of excellence.

SECTION VII

On the Ideal ^ and on Beauty of For?n

If we consider the ideal as comprising all in Painting
that is not literal imitation of Nature, we shall include
the most mannered as well as the most poetic Art ;
for the styles of such painters as Boucher and David
are as much below literal imitation as the styles of
Michael Angelo and Titian are above it.

But the ideal, as it relates to beauty of form, is far
from being always removed from matter-of-fact ; and
it is in representations of the human figure only that
a departure from the exact proportions and shape of
the individual model becomes necessary. The Elgin
horses are the closest possible copies of well -chosen
living specimens ; and in all natural forms, excepting
of man, it is easy to meet with specimens of which,
if the greatest painters can transfer to canvas literal
copies, they may consider themselves fortunate.

Among the few faults in Flaxman's outlines may be
noticed the conventional forms of some of the inferior
animals. In the fifth plate of his " Iliad," the eagle
by the side of Jupiter is merely heraldic in its figure,
and the lions, oxen, and sheep, in others of his de-
signs, are but a remove or two nearer to Nature.
Even his horses have something of the conventional

ON THE IDEAL

77

forms of the inferior styles of sculpture ; but had his
designs been made after he had seen the Elgin
marbles, he would no doubt have paid as much
attention to Nature in his horses as he has done in
the forms and characters of his men and women.

From this we may observe how apt even the
greatest artists are to rest contented, in some things,
with the degree of excellence of such previous Art as
is known to them. Raphael remained satisfied to
repeat the horses of the earlier Italian painters, with
their defective forms, and human eyes and expressions,
though he was far from satisfied to repeat the figures
of their men, women, and children.

The ideal, as a general principle, and not confined
to form merely, is a principle so natural that the most
untaught sign-painter paints his sky with the brightest
blue and his fields and trees with the most vivid green
he can procure, though he well knows he is exceeding
the colours of Nature. But his notion is, that a
picture must be an improvement on Nature — a notion
always preceding the true settlement of what consti-
tutes the ideal — namely, a selection from, and a
combination of, the beauties of Nature, as the only
means by which Art can compensate for its unavoid-
able shortcomings. "We cannot," said Sir Thomas
Lawrence, "compete with Nature in the exquisite
beauties she everywhere offers us, or in the minute
delicacies of her finish ; our only chance is in selec-
tion and combination."

The ideal I conceive to be not only the result of
an inborn aspiration of all taste, but it is the sole
condition of the very existence of Art ; and, therefore,

78 ON THE IDEAL, AND

where there is no selection, or where the selection is
not under the guidance of judgment there may be
very good Paintings as far as it is merely copy, but
there can be no Art ; and it should be impressed on
the student that though a good painter or copyist of
Nature may obtain immediate fame, yet, unless he can
rise to the rank of an artist^ he will not outlive his
generation; for the ideal is the poetic element by
which, properly understood, and not by any classifica-
tion of subject, high Art is distinguished from low or
ordinary Art.

This principle is far from being confined to the
beautiful or the perfect; for the hump-backed and
near-sighted Sibyl of Michael Angelo is conceived in
as great a style as anything by his hand ; and Hogarth,
in his own subjects, is as ideal as Raphael, because
every face and form there is as well chosen for what
he meant to express as are the faces and forms of
Raphael.

" I work," said Raphael, " upon a certain idea that
presents itself to my mind. Whether this idea has
any artistic excellence I know not, but I do my best
to attain it." Though the mind of Raphael was, no
doubt, more than ordinarily formed for the reception
of images of beauty and propriety from Nature, yet he
was led to her by those "'arbiters of form," the Greeks.

Angelico believed of himself that his pencil wrought
by the immediate inspiration of Heaven, and thought
it would be presumptuous to alter his first conceptions ;
yet, in one of the few pictures I have seen by his
hand, the principal face, and that too of a divine
personage, squints. The inspiration of Angelico was,

ON BEAUTY OF FORM

79

in fact, no other than that of Raphael. They both
repeated, with more or less of beauty, what their
contemporaries were doing and their predecessors
had done, with the assistance of a scanty legacy from
the wealth of Greece, gradually deteriorated as it
passed through the hands of the Romans, while the
empire declined; but by degrees recovered, as Art
arose from a state of suspended animation to its full
vigour in the fifteenth century. Even in our own
days additions to this precious wealth have been made
available to us ; and while we are thankful, we must
remember that, like all good things, the treasures of
the antique may be used to our benefit or abused to
our. injury.

In studying the sculpture of the Greeks and Romans,
we must ascertain the principles on which they worked ;
for the mere mechanical process of copying their pro-
ductions, however it may help us to obedience of hand
and correctness of eye, will never make us masters of
form. Nor can the antique be studied long to ad-
vantage without a constant reference to Nature ;
otherwise we shall become blinded to its occasional
defects ; as an instance of which may be noted a fault
in the figure of the Laocoon, the sculptor of which
has given an equal fulness to both the pectoral
muscles, whereas the right arm being raised, would
draw up the right pectoral muscle until it would be-
come nearly flat.

I have remarked how easily even a great artist may
be led away from beauty in blindly following previous
Art ; and, as this cannot be too strongly impressed on
the student, I will here notice one of the most impor-

8o

ON THE IDEAL, AND

tant works of Guido— the "Aurora," in which, as
Fuseli says, the goddess " deserves to precede hours
less clumsy." There can be no doubt that these
short and heavy figures are the result of Guido's
admiration of the gods and goddesses on the walls of
the Farnesini, for the defects of which Raphael is not
wholly answerable, as they were painted from his
designs chiefly by Julio Romano. The "Galatea,"
supposed to be entirely the work of Raphael, is, I
believe, free, or, at any rate, freer from these faults.

But, whatever may be the defects in particular
works of Raphael, he is ever present to my mind as
the one great painter of beauty. Not of beauty merely
resulting from exact proportion or elegance of form,
neither as it is enhanced by colour; for in these
respects he is often surpassed by other painters ; and
Fuseli may probably be right in saying, " no face of
Raphael's is perfectly beautiful," that is, perfect in
the proportions of beauty.

But Raphael is the greatest painter of the highest
intellectual beauty, the greatest painter of loveliness.
Loveliness, independent on sex, and ahuays the charm
of his children. How much and how often this is
assisted by incident and grace of attitude, I will not
now inquire ; nor would I by any means say that in
the works of many other painters the same charm
may not be found — a charm, however, that pervades
the Art of Raphael and raises him above the Greek
sculptors, in whose works the beauty of exact propor-
tion and of grace is common enough, but among their
female heads I know but of one that impresses me as
lovely.

ON BEAUTY OF FORM

8i

I am ignorant whether the Muses, of which the
Academy has casts, are Greek or Roman, but the
head of the Thalia is the most charming thing in
sculpture I ever saw, uniting the utmost tenderness of
expression with great beauty of features. The figure,
peculiar in its proportions, being remarkably slender,
entirely corresponds with the face, and the attitude is
as graceful as that is charming. Indeed this delicate
statue is, from head to foot, such a personification of
feminine gentleness, refinement, and sensibility, as we
meet with in Nature, much oftener than in Art, with
all its boasted poetry.

In all, either of Sculpture or Painting, that I am
acquainted with, the only face of equal beauty to that
of the Thalia, is the face of Michael Angelo's Delphic
Sibyl ; and this I have seen only in a copy (but a
most admirable one) by Mr. Richard Cook.^ In the
Sibyl, as in the Thalia, the soul sits in the eyes and
breathes from the lips. The Muse seems absorbed
in tender thoughts, the Sibyl listens in wonderment to
a heavenly voice ; and if ever inspiration was painted,
it is here.

The accidents that tend to impair the beauty of
humanity are so much more numerous than those
which affect any other forms, that it is not too much
to say, perfect beauty of face and figure can never be
found in man or woman. The human form, in in-
fancy, has in most instances its greatest conceivable
beauty \ but the wearing of clothes soon impairs it ;

1 Some repairs were going on in the Sistine Chapel, and
Mr. Cook had the advantage of making his drawing from a
scaffold upon which he stood, close to the fresco.

82

ON BEAUTY OF FORM

no leg or foot, for instance, can remain long unspoiled
by the shoe or the garter. Nor is it form only that
is injured by dress ; the colour becomes unequal
in the degree in which the body is more or less
exposed to the air, and the portions most closely
bandaged are tinged with an unhealthy yellowness.
Luxury, and the injurious habits consequent on most
of the employments of man, contribute, with his
vices, to the gradual injury of so much of beauty as
may have been the birthright of the individual ; and
it is, therefore, only by the comparison of many in-
stances, and a just selection of what remains best in
each, that a standard of human form has ever been
established.

All beauty is in a great degree relative. I need
scarcely remark that the most perfect proportions of
the woman are, in some respects, the reverse of beauty
in the man ; and the long body and short legs of the
child would amount to deformity in the adult : — and
the same is, in a degree, true of grace. The attitudes
of children are proverbially graceful; yet there are
some proper only to childhood, and which would be
ridiculous in elder life, — as there are attitudes graceful
in women that belong to them only. The slightly-
inward inclination of the knees in the structure of the
female may often be increased with an increase of
grace, — but any such deviation from the straight line
from the hip to the foot in man suggests weakness ;
and though the representation of peculiar characters
may require us to give an effeminate structure to the
"Oian or a masculine one to the woman, this must always
be at the expense of the beauty proper to each.

ON THE BEAUTY OF OLD AGE 83

There is a beauty peculiar to old age, to disease, to
calamity ; and in death there is a strange and peculiar
beauty, I believe, in almost every instance.

With respect to the first, I cannot do better than
quote the following passage from the pen of a gifted
lady.i

" The beauty of old age is, perhaps, more rare than
that of any other time of life, — I mean, fewer attain
to the beauty which adorns the hoary head ; — but
when it is possessed, it is the most noble or the most
lovely, because it is the most truly spiritual and the
most truly moral of all beauty. Other beauty, though
probably in a great degree dependent upon, and
certainly in a great degree enhanced by, moral quali-
ties, is yet in many respects an accident of forms and
colours, but the beauty of old age is the resume of the
life of man. Upon that time-worn countenance the
passions and the faults, the virtues and the feelings,
the tenderness, love, benevolence — or envy, covetous-
ness, selfishness, and rage, have written their characters
in ineffaceable lines ; and beautiful it is to see, as we
often do see, faces actually plain to ugliness in their
youth gradually expanding into beauty under the in-
fluence of goodness^ sense, and worth ; the eye bright-
ening into a serene clearness ; the lines of the coun-
tenance assuming a heavenly refinement and repose ;
the whole face glorified with a sweetness and loveli-
ness not of this world. And it is the reverse — and
alas ! I fear more frequently — when the lovely features
that delight us in youth, gradually lose their charm,
as the insipidity of vanity, the scowl of disappointment,
1 Mrs. Marsh, from The Wilmingtons.

84 ON THE BEAUTY OF DISEASE, ETC,

the dulness of vacuity, the sharp thin Hnes of vicious
excitement, or the grosser ones of sensual enjoyment,
gradually obscure what once was."

The beauty of disease, like that of old age, is
chiefly, though not entirely, spiritual. The young
boy or girl whose face and form were ordinary and
commonplace while (as they seemed) in rude health,
gradually appear refining into angels, as they waste
away. The brightening of the eye with unearthly
lustre, the delicate flush of the cheek, the pearliness
of the teeth, and the attenuation of the whitening
hands, all add inconceivably to the interest with which
we look on the young, slowly wasting in decline, who
seem (to use the words of Coleridge) "signed and
sealed for Heaven."

Calamity will, where there is anything of goodness
or of thought, add more and more of goodness and
thought to the features. The beggar who sat to
Reynolds for his "Ugolino" was again selected by
him as a model for a picture of " Resignation," sug-
gested by the beautiful lines of Goldsmith. But we
may believe it was only after years of privation that
the head of this man, though the features were fine,
became worthy of this subject, or fit for the
" Ugolino."

But the beauty of death is not so easily explicable.
How far its strange fascination may arise from the
idea suggested of a repose, compared with which that
of the most tranquil sleep is agitation, I will not pre-
tend to determine. I knew a man of the highest
order of mind, a man of fine feelings, but of great
simplicity, and far above all affectation, who, stand-

ON THE BEAUTY OF DEATH 85

ing by the corpse of his wife, said — " It gives me very
pleasurable sensations." And yet he had truly loved
her.

The exquisite lines in " The Giaour," in which the
present aspect of Greece is compared to a beautiful
corpse, are familiar to every reader. Lord Byron, in
a note to the passage, remarks that "this peculiar
beauty remains but a few hours after death." But I
have been told, by those in the habit of making casts,
that on the second day the expression is generally
improved, and even on the third day it is often still
finer. I have, in several instances, been asked to
make drawings from the dead, and though in every
case I have entered the room where the body lay
somewhat reluctantly, yet I have invariably felt reluc-
tant to quit it.

At Kreutsberg, near Bonn, there is a church, under
the pavement of which lie, in one vault, the bodies of
twenty-five monks, in open coffins. The dryness of
the air has preserved them from decay, though the
last buried has lain there for more than a century. I
visited this church with a party of ladies, who at first
hesitated to descend into the abode of the dead. We
all, however, went down, each carrying a lighted taper,
and such was the fascination of this singular scene
that we lingered in it for some time. The air was
perfectly pure, and we seemed to be in another world,
with its own eternal interests effacing for the time all
other interests. It seemed to us a mistake that
death should be represented by poets or by painters
as a hideous phantom. We could not contemplate
those withered faces of old men, for they seemed all

86 ON THE BEAUTY OF DEATH

old, and think of death otherwise than as a gentle
friend. Their attitudes were varied, and all had a
kind of grace, which, though we knew it to be arranged
by their friends, seemed perfectly natural. One, the
gardener, had a chaplet of withered leaves round his
head. All were clothed in the dress of their order ;
and their clothes, as well as their bodies, though the
last were dried to mummies, appeared to be little
decayed.

Lord Byron says, " In death from a stab, the coun-
tenance preserves its traits of feeling or ferocity, and
the mind its bias to the last." I can only say that
in all the casts I have seen from those whose deaths
have been violent or painful, I have noticed the same
repose of the features and the same faint indication of
a smile that assists in constituting the beauty of death
in other cases. Causes wholly unconnected with the
state of mind or feeling at the time of dissolution
contribute, in individual cases, to beautify the features.
The cast taken, very imperfectly, by Dr. Antomarchi,
from the face of Napoleon, is more handsome than
any bust or portrait of him; and, indeed, has the
look of a much younger man than he appears in the
latest portraits. This is easily accounted for. Illness
had reduced the superabundant fleshiness of the lower
part of his face, and brought it back to the condition
of an early period ; and death, by leaving the mouth
slightly open, had destroyed that expression of selfish
determination which the thin compressed lips give to
every portrait of Napoleon. The profile of the cast
is the most perfectly beautiful profile of a man I ever
saw; and it should here be noticed that, as in this

ON THE BEAUTY OF DEATH 87

instance, the beauty added by death to a face origin-
ally of very fine proportions has nothing to do with
metaphysical causes, so I believe it is the case in
every instance, the faint smile being caused by the
last slight convulsion after all consciousness has
ceased.

From sheer indolence great mistakes are often
made in the representations of death. Painters some-
times omit to leave the mouth open, and I have seen
a naked corpse painted with the chest raised, as it
could only be in the act of drawing breath, studied,
of course, from a living model.

SECTION VIII

On Drawing

It is the practice in all schools in which drawing the
human figure is taught, to begin with the antique;
accompanied with the study of so much of anatomy
as shall enable the painter to understand the causes
of all the varieties of form and action.

Sir Joshua Reynolds frequently, and forcibly, and,
I think, convincingly^ inculcates the importance to the
young painter of having the palette on his hand at the
very commencement of his studies. He recommends
that he should paint his studies as well as draiu them,
and it is probable he meant his studies from sculpture
as well as those from Nature ; and I know it was the
practice of one of our most distinguished living artists,
and of some of his fellow-students, to paint from the
casts in the Royal Academy.

Stothard showed me some exquisite drawings of
his own from the antique, with pen and ink only, the
shadows being beautifully hatched in the manner of
line engravings. He told me he adopted this method
because, as he could not obliterate a line, it obliged
him to think before he touched his paper; and no doubt
it contributed to that certainty of hand and accuracy
of eye which was so valuable to him in after life.

ON DRA WING 89

}

In the study of the antique marbles, an observing
eye will soon discover that they are far from being
of equal perfection. Many have been injured by
restoration, which fortunately, however, the Elgin
fragments have escaped, and it may be hoped will
for ever escape; and many are not of the best
times, which have always been the briefest times
of Art. If the remains of Roman sculpture, whether
by Greek or native artists, are not, on the whole,
equal to the Greek Art of the Phidian era, they
yet abound with works, for the preservation of
which we cannot be too thankful. The mighty
Farnese Hercules, and the Belvidere Apollo " coming
forth as a bridegroom," are "for all time." Critics
may find fault, and I remember that when the
Elgin Theseus arrived in England, attempts were
made to degrade the Hercules and Apollo by com-
parisons with a noble work as matchless as them-
selves; attempts that fully proved the wisdom of
Constable's remark, that "no fine things will bear
or want comparisons; every fine thing is unique."

There is, however, one celebrated antique in the
attitude of which a serious defect has been pointed
out by Dr. Spurzheim, a defect for which not all
its excellence can atone. The hero, misnamed " The
Fighting Gladiator," throws himself forward to attack,
while his left arm is raised in defence ; and yet a
blow from a child on that arm would knock him
to the ground; the right leg, which should render
the attitude a firm one, being advanced instead of
the other. Indeed, Nature would dictate a contrary
position of the legs without any knowledge of the

90

ON DRA WING

science of defence, as will be at once felt if we
attempt to place ourselves in the attitude. How
such a serious fault should have been committed
it is difficult to conceive. The only conjecture is,
that the position of the limbs was arranged by the
sculptor as a matter of composition, without, what
would have been the better mode, desiring a living
model to place himself in a fighting attitude.

Though the Royal Academy requires the attain-
ment of a considerable degree of power in drawing
from the antique before the student is admitted to
the life, yet (out of school) the young painter cannot
begin too soon to draw from Nature, and particularly
heads and hands; and in such practice, as well as
when admitted to the life school, what is before
him should be carefully copied without any attempt
to improve defective forms. Nothing else need be
said to recommend this mode of study than that
it was practised by Flaxman and by Stothard.

A knowledge of anatomy may be abused, like all
other knowledge, by its ostentatious display, or by
allowing theories formed upon it to supersede ob-
servation. Both these causes contributed to faults
in the forms of a late eminent painter, who was yet
an enthusiastic admirer* of the Elgin marbles, works
not more remarkable for their anatomical truth than
for its unobtrusiveness. Mr. Haydon was not only
thoroughly acquainted with the structure and uses
of the numan bones and muscles, but he had paid
much attention to comparative anatomy, and thence
formed a theory of the ideal, which consisted in
giving an emphasis to those peculiarities of form

ON DRA WING

91

which distinguish the man from the brute, where
the character was to be noble; and where ignoble,
in adding something of the brute peculiarities to
the human form. Thus he raised the forehead and
exaggerated its width, to express intellect, to an
appearance of disease; and arched the bones of
the foot (that it might deviate as much as possible
from the flat foot of the monkey) into a form that
would not be admired in Nature, and that is not
to be found in the best antiques.

As the Autobiography and Lectures of this extra-
ordinary man will always be read with great interest,
the student should be placed on his guard against
the occasional carelessness of his assertions. In
his second lecture, for instance, he tells us that
"Raphael, instigated by his genius, adhered to
the head and face as immediate vehicles of ex-
pression, and he gave the head an undue prepon-
derance as to size. The Greeks generally made
their figures seven, seven and a half, eight heads,
and even nine heads high. Raphael seldom more
than six, and sometimes five." This is quite un-
true, as an examination of the cartoons will prove.
Many of the figures in these would certainly measure
eight heads, and I doubt if one can be found to
measure so few as five or even six heads high. It
is probable Raphael did not take the trouble to
apply the compasses to his figures, as the same
personages in different subjects differ in their pro-
portions. At any rate it will be evident to any
practised eye that the figures, generally, in the
cartoons, as in the other works of Raphael, though

92

ON DRA WING

of various stature, do not differ in their general
measurement from the antique, however they may
vary from those of Michael Angelo, whose men
are, as Fuseli says, "a race of giants."
' Students learn much from each other, and much
often that is valuable; but they should always be
on their guard against fashions that creep into
drawing schools from the practice of clever young
men, to whom the rest look up. I have lately
noticed a prevailing practice, in the Life School
of the Royal Academy, of an equally strong pro-
nunciation of the outline of the entire figure, which
tends to inure the eye to a hard, detached method
of representing form, unlike the manner in which
Nature, with all her beautiful varieties of light and
shade, always addresses herself to the eye. The
library of the Royal Academy possesses about
seventy drawings from the life, by Stothard, some
very slight, and others exquisitely wrought, though
few that are completely finished. They may, how-
ever, be strongly recommended to the notice of
the student, who can never examine them without
improvement of his perception of the beauties of
Nature; and they may, I think, prove a safeguard
against his being led into mannerism by the changing
fashions of schools ; though not if he attempts a
literal imitation of them.

SECTION IX

Invention and Expression

INSTANCES FROM THE OLD MASTERS

The inventive faculty is of as much importance to
the painter of portrait as to the painter of history;
and of as much also to the painter even of local
landscape, all the features of which are capable of
powerful expression in the hands of genius. But, for
the present, I shall confine myself to the invention
of the incidents of life and the expression of the
passions.

Originality and skill in inventing or telling a story,
and in expressing the passions, are kept alive only by
the artist's powers of observation ; and the difference
between the greater or lesser painter results very
much from this, — that the first thinks of his Art
everywhere and at all times, the last in his painting-
room only and at set hours. Hogarth, describing
his own habits, says, " Be where I would, while my
eyes were open, I was continually at my studies, and
acquiring something useful to my profession ; and
Stothard's sketch-books were filled with groups of
figures and scenery made without selection, but

94 INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

merely of what chance offered to his notice while
travelling; sometimes objects which the window of
an inn presented while horses were changing, and
sometimes what he saw from the top of a stage-coach ;
and I would earnestly impress on all young artists,
that the practice of redeeming spare moments of time
by sketching whatever is thrown in their way is an
invaluable one. Those who adopt it will be sure to
be rewarded by often finding memoranda so made of
far greater interest than they had imagined; and it
will correct the habit, always fatal to originality, of
going to Nature for things only that resemble what
they have seen in Art. Among the drawings by
Raphael, collected by Sir Thomas Lawrence, were
many evidently of what chance presented to him. I
recollect one, in particular, singularly elegant, of three
or four young men in the dress of his time sitting at
a table, and their attitudes but very slightly varied ; —
an accidental group, in all probability, of his pupils.
The works of Michael Angel o abound in attitudes
that seem as if taken immediately from Nature ; and,
indeed, most of the noble range of his prophets and
sibyls have this look.

A subject happily adopted from Nature should not
deprive the painter of the credit due to invention ;
for indeed the mere faculty of inventing an incident
is far more common than the nice and quick percep-
tion of that in Nature which is fitted to the purposes
of Art, and which ordinary observers would pass by,
or reject, perhaps, as trifling or unworthy. Burns
turned up a mouse with his plough, and was heard
to say by a man who was at work with him, "I'll

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 95

make that mouse immortal ! " And he kept his
word.

The importance of the constant observation of
Nature to the painter of real life will be readily
admitted, but such habits are of no less value to the
painter of the most imaginative class of subjects. —
The supernatural is not the unnatural. The centaur,
the sphinx, the satyr, etc., are but combinations of
Nature, and there is true taste shown in making these
ideal beings act naturally, — as when, in a group of
the Phygalian Marbles, a centaur bites his antagonist,
and when Shakspeare makes Bottom, the weaver,
long for hay and oats when the ass's head is on his
shoulders. Indeed, two of the most exquisitely
poetic conceptions of Shakspeare, the Oberon and
Titania, when we look beyond the charm of their lan-
guage, are the veriest man and wife that ever existed.

And here it may be useful to notice an instance of
the substitution of the unnatural for the supernatural
by a great master. In the picture by Nicolo Poussin,
in the National Gallery, of "Perseus destroying his
Adversaries by displaying the Gorgon's Head," the
attempt to represent men half flesh and half stone
suggests nothing to the eye but imperfect or damaged
colouring. The subject, indeed, defies the painter's
Art ; and this failure is a single exception in the
practice of a painter pre-eminently gifted with the
power of making poetic fiction equally beautiful and
probable to the eye.

The perception of what is false is, at least, a step
towards the knowledge of what is true; and it will
be found that the conventional and the affected are

96 INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

the result of that species of mind that will not let
Nature have her own way — that has formed, indeed,
its notions of consistency independently on observa-
tion. To explain what I mean, I would say that had
such a mind to deal with a story of such love as that
of Romeo and Juliet, it would have deemed it a pro-
fanation of the passion to make, as Shakspeare has
done, Juliet the successor of Rosaline in the heart of
Romeo.

The ideal of such writers or painters is not an
ideal of selection but an ideal of their own, or, I
believe, in most cases, an ideal imitated from other
similarly-constituted minds ; for in all their produc-
tions there is a remarkable family likeness. Through-
out their delineations of life there is an absence of
all that delicate discrimination of the subtle lights
and shades of character which a thorough and un-
biassed acquaintance with the men and women that
surround us can only teach. Instead of true repre-
sentations of life, they give us faultless heroes and
heroines opposed to characters of motiveless atrocity ;
— and when their subjects are above the world, they
mistake the conventional so entirely for the ideal as
to keep themselves equally out of the sphere of our
sympathies.

Such minds remain in a state of perpetual child-
hood;— often they are highly amiable, and as often
cold and unsympathising. With the best intentions,
they Q,?.x\. effect no good, but may very much mislead
— for a writer or painter can only serve the cause of
morality in the degree in which he is true to Nature.
In Shakspeare we discover no aim to enforce a moral.

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

but he is the most moral of all dramatists, because he
is the truest.

It is a mistake to suppose that human nature may
not be studied within a confined limit. The constant
inhabitant of a village may learn far more of man-
kind, if he be a close and just observer, than he
whose life is spent in roaming over the world, if he
observes not carefully, and, above all, if he studies not
himself. Indeed, the opportunities of knowing a few
individuals long and intimately are more favourable
to a knowledge of character than seeing much of the
surface of life, which is nearly all that is seen in
travelling. Few men travelled less than Shakspeare,
than Raphael, or than Hogarth.

In the loose language in which the productions of
Art are spoken of, we often hear of the creations of the
poet or the painter. But invention is combination^
not creation ; and in Painting whatever may with any
degree of correctness be called creation can only be
the monstrous or the false. Mannered Art of every
description is properly a creation of the pencil. It
has graces, expressions, styles of composition, lights,
shades, and colours all its own, and all mistaken by
the mannerist himself, and by his admirers, for the
ideal. "The Art would be easily understood,"
said Constable, "if the mannerists had never ex-
isted."

Selection and Combination are, then, the principles
on which Invention must work ; and in recurring so
frequently to these, I wish as much as possible to
avoid splitting general principles into rules. The only
mode in which instruction can be conveyed, after the

H

98 INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

principles derived from Nature are pointed out, is to
draw attention, in detail, to the varieties of practice
that have prevailed in different ages and schools, and
ascertain how far they are founded in truth, — not so
much to recommend their imitation as to quicken
powers that may serve as guides in new and untried
ways.

Invention and Expression have always been the first
qualities to display themselves in Art. In the dark
ages, Religion was driven by the ferocity of the times
into the Monastery and the Hermitage, whither she
was accompanied by all that remained of learning.
Convents, therefore, became the nurseries of Art and
of Science, as well as of Religion ; and Painting, in
the hands of the mediaeval artists, was consequently
employed exclusively on contemplative and devotional
subjects. It may be interesting to the antiquary, but
it is useless to the artist, to go farther back than
to Giotto, in considering the inventive power; and
whether, in the age of JuHus or Leo, he might have
been what Raphael was, is a question that it may be
honourable to both to ask, but which it is fair to both
that it should be left without an answer. As it is,
the advantage, if it be but that of time, is on the side
of Raphael, and he stands forward pre-eminently as
the painter of Christianity, not confined to the cloister,
but entering into the world, adapted to the world, —
sympathising with all that is human, relieving the
infirmities and satisfying all the real wants of our
nature, to purify and to elevate it. And to be this, it
was necessary that Raphael should be, as Fuseli calls
him, "the warm master of our sympathies," as well

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 99

as heir to all the highest powers of the artists who
preceded him.

The Cartoons make me present at the scenes they
represent more than the works of any other painter
who has treated such subjects ; and it is only in the
recollection of them that I can fancy I have seen the
Apostles. It may be unfair to judge entirely of
Leonardo's "Last Supper" from the copy in our
Academy, fine as it is ; or I should say that, with the
exception of that of the Saviour, all the heads there
are less satisfactory than those of the same personages
in the Cartoons.

In their representations of humanity, many of the
earlier Italian painters seem to have given portraits of
persons about them with little attention to propriety of
character ; in this respect resembling the Naturalisti
of the latter part of the sixteenth century. They were
ideal only in their impersonations of the divine.
Where, however, their subjects are dramatic, their
inventions are often very fine ; and the engravings from
the Campo Santo at Pisa show from whence many of
the materials of Raphael and Michael Angelo were
derived. But whatever Raphael adopted, from this
great treasure-house of Mediaeval Art, he adopted to
improve, which cannot perhaps be so strictly said of
Michael Angelo, whose " Last Judgment " might per-
haps have been better planned, as unquestionably the
principal figure might be more finely conceived, had
he never seen the " Last Judgment " of Orcagna.

The great work of that early painter, the " Triumph
of Death," has, however, not been imitated, to my
knowledge, in its principal feature; indeed the con-

loo INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

ception is so fine as to preclude amendment, the only
justification of imitation. Nothing could be added,
nothing taken from it, without injury. Our associa-
tions of the skeleton form with Death have, it is true,
to be got rid of at the first sight of the beldame of
Orcagna, an Atropos armed with a scythe, with
streaming hair, and the wings and talons of a harpy.
She disregards the solicitations of a group of beggars,
and hastens towards a party of fair dames and gallant
cavaliers, who are seated under the shade of orange-
trees listening to minstrelsy, while Cupids are flutter-
ing above them. This group is separated from the
beggars by a heap of the dead and the dying, kings,
queens, churchmen, warriors, lords, and ladies — many
of them still grasping in their hands the things of the
world. No finer sermon was ever painted ; — and it
has a passage which I cannot but notice, because it
does the highest honour to the painter's feelings,
when we consider the spirit of the age in which he
lived. Among the poor and the miserable who are
calling on Death for relief, a wretched man extends
his arms, from which both hands have been lopped
by the barbarity of the law, which is evident from
the mutilation also of his features. Now, though
the obtrusion of objects of horror is, in most cases,
unjustifiable, — yet here the humanity of the motive,
undoubtedly that of interesting the better feelings of
the rulers of his time, and opening their eyes to the
cruelty of their laws, places the painter among the
benefactors of his species.

Art was checked in its very beginning by the dread
of idolatry ; and it seems from this fear that the first

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION loi

Christian artists refrained, or were prohibited, from any
attempt to introduce representations of the real person
of our Saviour into their works. Types were there-
fore resorted to, and hence the frequent preference of
subjects from the Old Testament. Abraham, in the
act of sacrificing Isaac, alluded to the one great Sacri-
fice,— the rock struck by Moses was the spiritual Rock,
the Stream, the Well of salvation, and the ascension
of Elijah to Heaven, the ascension of our Lord.

This system was adopted also by Michael Angelo
in the Sistine Chapel, where Christ appears only as
the Judge of the World. — And Raphael, in the fres-
coes of the Vatican, complimented the Popes Julius
the Second and Leo the Tenth, by typical allusions
to passages in their lives. The subjects in which he
has done this were no doubt suggested to him, and
not, perhaps, such as he would have chosen ; but the
skill with which he has managed the unavoidable
anachronisms cannot be too highly praised.

When, however, near the close of his life, Raphael
was employed by Leo to furnish a series of designs
for tapestry, from the New Testament, to adorn the
Sistine Chapel, he was no longer fettered by any
other than the direct meaning of the story, and he
produced the Cartoons, of which the seven that (so
fortunately for this country) belong to the Royal
collection, and which are the only ones that exist,
would alone have given him his transcendent reputa-
tion, were they the only series of his works known
to us.

In the "Miraculous Draught of Fishes" we see
the Redeemer selecting his friends and ministers from

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

the humblest class of men. In the " Charge to Peter "
the choice is ratified in a still more solemn manner.
In the " Death of Ananias " and in the " Punishment
of Elymas" the Gospel purity is vindicated, — at
Lystra, and at the Beautiful Gate its beneficence is
manifested, — while at Athens it opposes the pride of
philosophy, and demands of the sophists that they
should become as little children. It is true these
subjects might have been selected, as some of them
have been, by other painters ; but the admirable pro-
priety with which Raphael has treated them belongs
to himself alone, — and there is not an instance in
which any story of the series has been repeated by
another hand, however great, which is not compara-
tively a failure.

But the Cartoons are not faultless. I care little
for the mistake about the size of the boats in the
"Miraculous Draught," but I do care about what
seems to me a failure in the action and expression of
St. Paul in the "Sacrifice at Lystra." Nothing can
be more elegant than the lines of the figure; but
(and this is rare indeed with Raphael) the meaning
is not expressed. The left hand does not hold the
drapery so that it could be torn, and the attitude
altogether is wanting in the characteristic energy
of St. Paul. How different is he from the earnest
man who, in the Areopagus, directs the group of
philosophers before him to the true God ! Here is
St. Paul himself, — the Paul whose fervid eloquence
made Felix tremble, and almost persuaded Agrippa
to become a Christian, as he stood in chains before
them. In the whole wide range of Raphael's com-

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 103

positions, I know not one, indeed, in which truth of
expression and discrimination of character are carried
further than in this cartoon. How admirably has he
characterised the disciples of the various sects of
philosophy, and how striking is the contrast presented
to all these by the two nearest figures of the com-
position— Dionysius the Areopagite, and Damaris !
Their hearts are penetrated; they regard what they
hear, not as a system of human knowledge, but as
divine truth; and they advance with a modest and
earnest reverence to the Apostle, — expressed as
Raphael alone could express it.

If the head of the Saviour, even as it appears in
the copy which we possess of Leonardo's great
work, be, as it seems to me, the best image of a
countenance of which no representation can ever
satisfy us, the heads in the "Miraculous Draught
of Fishes " and the " Charge to Peter " are perhaps
the next in value. The expression "divine" is
often applied to human works by an hyperbole of
language which custom has sanctioned; but where
is the power that is to give the divine in expression,
or where the authority by which the attainment is
to be confirmed? With a lofty conception of
humanity we must be content. In Leonardo's
work such a conception shows us "The Man of
Sorrows," in the "Miraculous Draught of Fishes"
the gentlest of masters, but in the "Charge to
Peter," where we expect so much more, Art could
go no higher.

Are, then, such subjects as this, or the "Trans-
figuration," or the "Last Judgment," not to be

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

painted? Whatever may be the answer to this
question, an objection that rests on the inadequacy
of human powers would exclude much from Art
that we should be sorry to lose. It would exclude,
for instance, Claude's and Turner's representations
of the sun; and if Art may attempt nothing but
with the hope of entire success, it would be limited
indeed. In all that relates to the imitation of
material Nature, this question is settled by the
principle that deception is in no case the end of
Painting; and in what relates to higher things it
is a question that had better be left open.

In thinking of Raphael, I cannot but dissent
from the opinion now in fashion with one class of
critics — namely, that his earliest works are to be
preferred for their religious sentiment to those of
his riper years. It is very true that he did not
diverge from the Bible and the legends of his
church for his subjects till he was in the prime of
life; but the Cartoons are among his latest pro-
ductions,^ and they display a heart as pure, as
gentle, and as reverent of all holy things, as those
of his youngest days; while, at the same time,
they show such an extended knowledge of the
world as might be expected from the date of their
production. In that noble one, the "Charge to
Peter," look at the attitude and expression of the
kneeling saint ! look at the earnestness and love
with which John presses forward to his master !
and at the surprise and reverential awe, mingled

1 Dr. Waagen makes him thirty, and Dr. Kiigler thirty-two,
when he commenced them.

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 105

with something of fear, that prevents the rest of
the disciples from clustering round their Lord !
There is, to me, as much of deep religious feeling
in this single picture as in all the " Holy Families "
of his early hand, with all their loveliness and
purity; and such pictures as this and the "Miracu-
lous Draught of Fishes," and the " Death of Ananias,''
make me feel with Lavater, that "Raphael is, and
ever will be, an apostolic man; in other words, he
is, with regard to painters, what the apostles were
with regard to the rest of mankind." — Who, I would
ask, but Raphael, could have given a befitting ex-
pression to that extraordinary exclamation of St.
Peter, " Depart from me, for I am a sinful man,

0 Lord ? " And who but Raphael has represented,
so truly^ the first-called disciples as lowly fishermen,
and yet with a natural dignity befitting men selected
for the regeneration of their species ?

It is very easy for those who cannot impress on
canvas the nice shades of human character and
passion to mistake the absence of this power for
purity of feeling, and the endless copyings in early
Art of the attitudes of devotion, which were and are
always to be seen in every Roman Catholic church,
for religious sentiment. But because Raphael went
out of the church and into the world, — where he
has shown us the first and brightest appearances
of Christianity among men of like passions with
ourselves, as no other painter has shown them, —

1 cannot understand the spirit of that criticism that
can speak of his fall — the fall of Raphael ! — be
it observed, long before he painted the Cartoons, —

io6 INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

and that can at the same time dwell with admiration
on the meanness and inanity of the saints of Francia,
and his unchildlike children.

A fault of many painters, in their representations
of childhood, is, that they make it taking an interest
in what can only concern more advanced periods of
life. But Raphael's children, unless the subject re-
quires it should be otherwise, are, as we see them
generally in Nature, wholly unconcerned with the
incidents that occupy the attention of their elders.
Thus, the boy in the cartoon of the " Beautiful Gate "
pulls the girdle of his grandfather, who is entirely
absorbed in what St. Peter is saying to the cripple.
The child, impatient of delay, wants the old man
to move on. In the " Sacrifice at Lystra," also, the
two beautiful boys placed at the altar, to officiate at
the ceremony, are too young to comprehend the
meaning of what is going on about them. One is
engrossed with the pipes on which he is playing, and
the attention of the other is attracted by a ram
brought for sacrifice. The quiet simplicity of these
sweet children has an indescribably charming effect
in this picture, where every other figure is under the
influence of an excitement they alone do not partake
in. Children, in the works of inferior painters, are
often nothing else than little actors ; but what I have
noticed of Raphael's children is true, in many in-
stances, of the children in the pictures of Rembrandt,
Jan Stcen, Hogarth, and other great painters, who,
like Raphael, looked to Nature for their incidents.

The great value of the Cartoons is much enhanced
by the circumstance, that, being cartoons^ they are

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 107

more entirely the work of Raphael's own hand than
the frescoes of the Vatican. Whatever assistance he
may have had in the painting of the architectural and
landscape backgrounds, the heads, and most of the
draperies, are the work of his hand.

Though Raphael did all things well, yet in scenes of
tumult and violence he has often been excelled by other
painters. The " Sacrifice of the Innocents " (I do not
allude to the ruined cartoon in the National Gallery,
but to the more extensive composition engraved by
Marc Antonio) is a subject I could wish he had never
touched, were it not for the single figure of the mother
sitting apart on the ground, and bending over the dead
or dying child on her lap, with one hand on its breast.
In this inimitable conception he has put his own seal
on the picture ; all the rest might have been the work
of another hand. Even in the " Heliodorus," I fancy
I see Raphael himself less in the overthrow of the
spoiler, fine as that part of the composition is, than in
the other wing of the picture. Rubens often surpasses
him — as, indeed, he does all other painters, with the
exception of Michael Angelo — in subjects of rapid
action ; but he as often omits to avail himself of the
contrast of calm dignity with tumult, which, in the
" Heliodorus," atones for the introduction of Julius the
Second as the witness of a miracle in the Jewish
Temple, dating 200 years before the Christian era.
For this anachronism the taste of the Pope is answer-
able, and not that of Raphael, who has managed it
with consummate judgment. Though part of the
picture, the Pope and his bearers form no part of the
subject. He seems only to contemplate the vision of

io8 INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

an event called to his mind by passages in his own life.
And that it may be fully understood that the presence
of Julius in the scene is not real, Raphael has not
allowed his attendants to be in the least conscious of
what is going on. They neither see the rush of
the heavenly assailants on the fallen man, nor hear the
screams of the women and children close to them.

The group of Leo X. and his train in the " Attila,"
is equally valuable as affording the contrast of quiet
dignity to consternation and tumult; but here the
Pope and those with him are properly actors in the
scene, the only anachronism being the substitution of
Leo X. for Leo I.

In the "Battle of Constantine,'* painted by Julio
Romano, after the death of Raphael, I can see little
of the great master (though the design is said to be
entirely Raphael's), but much of Julio Romano. The
group of the veteran raising the body of the youthful
standard-bearer, and the noble back figure near it of
a warrior bestriding his fallen horse, are unquestionably
Raphael's, for his pupil has nowhere given evidence
of powers equal to these. But the figure of Constan-
tine, the winged victories that hover over him, and
nearly everything else in this immense composition,
may well be given entirely to Julio, and with benefit
rather than with loss to Raphael. Two other com-
positions in the Vatican, less spoken of, I think, than
they deserve to be — namely, the "Coronation of
Charlemagne," and the "Oath of Leo X." — are
evidently and wholly designs of Raphael, though
painted, I believe, chiefly by his scholars.

Few stories can be entirely told by the pencil, nor

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 109

is it, therefore, any objection to a subject that it requires
explanation not in the power of Art to give. The
" Last Supper," of Leonardo, and Raphael's " Charge
to Peter," would make but very imperfect impressions
on a spectator ignorant of the words spoken by the
principal personage in each of these pictures j and we
judge of an artist's powers of invention and expression
not so much from his making us acquainted with a
story, as from the degree in which his work coincides
with a narrative previously known to us.

There is no subject in which Raphael has displayed
more taste and judgment than in the "Miracle at
Bolsena," one of the most unmanageable stories that
could be proposed to an artist. A disbelieving priest,
while officiating at the altar, is converted by seeing
blood flow from the consecrated wafer ; — and how is
this to be expressed ? — As Raphael has painted it, no
change in his attitude takes place, nor is there any
expression in the face of the priest sufficiently marked
to indicate that he sees anything extraordinary in the
wafer which he holds in his hand. His look is rather
that of stupefaction than surprise, but even this is not
strongly marked. Northcote discovered the blush of
conscious shame on his cheek, and it is natural in
such circumstances that he should redden — and quite
as natural that he should turn pale. But I doubt
whether Raphael would have relied on so uncertain
an indication as complexion, which might be consti-
tutionally either red or pale. I think it more likely
that he considered — however strong might be the
emotion of the priest, placed as he was at the high
altar, in the presence of the Pope, and with the eyes

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

of the multitude upon him — he would possess the
power of concealing his feelings, at least as long as he
retained any consciousness of his situation ; and, in-
deed, being a disbeliever, the daily exercise of his sacred
function must have made him an habitual dissembler.
The most emphatic expressions of surprise, of terror,
of adoration, and of love, are seen in the faces and
attitudes of all by whom, from their position, the
bleeding Host can be seen ; and it is evident that the
point of time chosen by Raphael is the moment in
which the miracle is discovered, by its effect not having
spread beyond the nearest spectators. The astonish-
ment, therefore, of the priest must at that instant be
extreme; but a start or expression of terror would have
united him in feeling with the groups behind him,
and adoration would have been too sudden in one who
up to that moment was an infidel. Vasari speaks of
the " irresolution " of the priest — and this, there can
be little doubt, was the intended expression ; irresolu-
tion, arising from a conflict of feelings, suppressing for
an instant the predominance of any one. — So far the
main subject. The rest of the picture is made up of
episodes of dignity, of grace, and of tenderness, such
as the mind of Raphael could alone supply, — and
which render this, though the theme is unfavourable,
one of the very finest of his works.

I have no intention of going regularly through the
Stpnze of Raphael, otherwise that exceedingly beauti-
ful composition the "Dispute of the Sacrament" should
have been mentioned first. Its striking peculiarity —
namely, the entire separation of its upper and lower
portions — is the separation of Heaven and Earth, and,

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

III

instead of being on any principle objectionable, con-
stitutes, in my mind, one of the beauties of a work
abounding in beauties. No wonder that, on its com-
pletion, Raphael was commissioned by the Pope to
cover the entire walls of the Vatican.

What I have said of the anachronisms in the
"Attila" and the " Heliodorus," does not apply to
those in the "Parnassus" and the "School of
Athens ; " there the subjects, as they do not relate a
story, are greatly enriched by the introduction of the
poets and philosophers of different epochs. The
judgment with which Raphael has arranged the
philosophers and their disciples in the "School of
Athens" has been often dwelt on. Sterne says of
the figure of Socrates, that it is " so exquisitely
imagined that even the particular manner of the
reasoning of the philosopher is expressed by it, — for
he holds the forefinger of his left hand between the
forefinger and thumb of his right ; and seems as if he
were saying to the libertine he is reclaiming — 'You
grant me this ; and this, and this, I don^t ask of you :
They follow of themselves in course.' " Perhaps this
remark is somewhat fanciful ; but unquestionably the
entire management of the group of which Socrates
forms the principal figure is most admirable. The
characteristic and extreme simplicity of the dress of
the philosopher would have made it difficult to dis-
tinguish him among so many more imposing person-
ages, were it not for the attention paid to him by
Alcibiades — whose elegant and striking figure, so
distinct from everything else in the picture, at the first
glance arrests our attention. Raphael has also shown

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

the most consummate knowledge of character in the
introduction of Diogenes. The old cynic has thrown
himself on the steps that cross the picture, in the
most conspicuous place in the very centre of the
composition, with a careless air, and an attitude
that plainly shows his contempt for all about
him, as well as his desire of being noticed. It
reminds us of his saying to Plato, while soiling his
beautiful carpet with his feet, " Thus I trample on the
pride of Plato," — and of the reply, "Yes, Diogenes,
but with still greater pride."

The obligations of Raphael to Michael Angelo
have, I think, been over-stated by most writers, and
Reynolds is wholly unjust when he says, " It is to
Michael Angelo that we owe even the existence of
Raphael ; it is to him Raphael owes the grandeur of
his style. He was taught by him to elevate his
thoughts, and to conceive his subjects with dignity.
His genius, however formed to blaze and to shine,
might, like fire in combustible matter, for ever have
lain dormant, if it had not caught a spark by its con-
tact with Michael Angelo." On the other hand, the
attempts of some of Raphael's admirers to place him
above his illustrious contemporary, by ascribing to
him equal sublimity of conception in addition to all
his own peculiar excellences, are unjust to Michael
Angelo. The crowning excellence of each is entirely
his own. The Sibyls of Raphael have been compared
to thosci of Michael Angelo, yet there is but one
among them that recalls the Sibyls of the Sistine
Chapel, — and that, I think, only to show its want of
the peculiar grandeur that characterised Michael

FIGURE— BY MICHAEL ANGELO.

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 1 13

Angelo ; while the rest are emanations entirely of the
mind of Raphael. There can be no doubt that
Raphael was fired and stimulated to fresh exertions
by the sight of his great rival's works, but I am not
sure that he may not have added from them some-
thing to his own style that did not improve it — per-
haps that occasional muscular heaviness of form,
which is only great as managed by Michael Angelo.
Indeed, in all the figures of Raphael that remind
me most of the Sistine Chapel, he seems below him-
self.

I have not a doubt but that those critics are right
who ascribe to Michael Angelo an acquaintance with
the resources of Art beyond that of Raphael. Even
from prints and copies it seems evident that he was
in possession of that great source of the sublime,
chiaroscuro, to an extent far beyond Raphael; and
this, no doubt, with those excellences of colour,
noticed by Fuseli and by Wilkie in the ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel, will account for the strong impression
made by him on Reynolds, who was at first sight dis-
appointed with the Vatican. — But then, on the other
hand, how exquisite must be the innate charm of
Raphael, to enable him to contend with so powerful
a rival, and so to contend as, at least, to divide the
opinion of the world on their respective merits, down
to the present time ! and which he never could have
done had he owed as much to Michael Angelo as is
often supposed.

The " Raising of Lazarus " would prove to me, if
the portraits of himself and the Cardinal Hyppolito de
Medicis had not already done so, that Sebastian del

I

114 INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

Piombo was a great portrait-painter ; but the " Rais-
ing of Lazarus'' proves to me, in addition, that he
was only a portrait-painter. It is placed beyond a
doubt that the figure of Lazarus was designed by
Michael Angelo — and with that exception the story is
not in any one point told. In the figure of the
Saviour, composition is all that has been thought of ;
and, indeed, it is evident that Sebastian wanted en-
tirely that power of imagination by which Raphael
and other great painters have been able, before com-
mencing their work, to make themselves, as it were,
present at the events they were to embody. Lazarus
has come forth, and is being loosed from his grave-
clothes ; yet neither of his sisters turns her eyes to
him. Indeed, Martha averts her head with an atti-
tude and expression as unmistakable as it was un-
worthy and inaccurate in the painter to have given it
to her ; for though the allusion to the corruption of
the body, in the history, is of importance, as sub-
stantiating the truth of the miracle, its effect must
have been dispelled by the return of life. The old
man kneehng on the opposite side is probably in-
tended for St. Peter ; but if so, he is too old, and his
action is neither natural, graceful, nor dignified. The
picture is, however, filled with portraits admirably
painted ; among which the profile of a young man in
a green and orange drapery, behind the figure of the
Saviour, is particularly fine.^

^ I speak of this picture rather as I recollect it — when it
could be seen, and as it may appear at some future time, if the
guardians of the National Gallery should ever be permitted to
have it cleaned.

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 1 1 5

It seemed right, after speaking of Raphael, to point
out what I conceive to be the defects of this work,
because it is one with which we are all intimately
acquainted, and because it may be useful to notice
the failures of Art as well as its successes ; and be-
cause the errors of such a painter as Sebastian are
likely to be the more mischievous from the influence
of his name and real merit.

Fuseli has spoken so fully and so admirably of
Michael Angelo that it would be presumptuous in me
to dwell on the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, and the
more so as I know them only from copies and en-
gravings.

I do not, however, recollect that the peculiar con-
ception of the "Judith and Holofernes" has been
pointed out by any commentator. The headless man
turns on his couch, and the rustling of the curtains,
occasioned by his upraised and moving arm, causes
Judith, who has just escaped from the tent, to look
back. Thus the terror of the scene is indescribably
heightened by an attention to the fact of the continua-
tion of muscular motion, for a short time, after de-
capitation.^

I am not aware of any treatment like this by
any other painter; and it is worthy of remark, that
Michael Angelo, while he has thus made the subject
in the highest degree terrific, has concealed the neck
of the victim, and so avoided a display of what would
be merely sickening.

The Cartoon of Pisa is a work of entire invention ;

1 This fact was noticed recently at the beheading of a
number of Chinese pirates.

1 1 6 INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

and varied and admirable as are its incidents, one of
the finest consists, in itself, of nothing more than the
tearing of a stocking. Connected, however, with the
story, and expressive of the eagerness of the veteran
who forces his dripping foot through it, in his haste to
obey the summons of the trumpet, it becomes heroic.
Nicolo Poussin has almost exactly copied this finely-
conceived figure in his Sacrament of Baptism," but
there the action wants the motive that animates the
old soldier of Michael Angelo, and the translation of
the figure, bereft of so much of its meaning, cannot
be justified.

Instances may be selected from the works of
Titian, in which neither the expression nor the story
could be carried farther. His "Entombment of
Christ " in the Louvre, is a picture of the truest and
deepest pathos, and would be so even were it unaided
by its solemn evening effect. Nothing was ever con-
ceived finer than the Mother, supported by the Mag-
dalen, and contrasted by a difi'erent though equally
poignant expression of grief.

In a small picture by Titian, belonging to Mr.
Rogers, of the apparition of our Lord in the garden
to Mary, the treatment is scarcely below the subject,
even in the principal figure, — but the conception of
the Magdalen is beyond all praise. She seems to
run forward towards her Master on her knees, — her
streaming hair and drapery denoting the utmost
rapidity of action, while her hand, extended to touch
Him, is suddenly checked by His words. This is to
me by far the most expressive conception of the sub-
ject with which I am acquainted.

IN VENTION AND EXPRESSION 1 1 7

The Venetian painters dealt much in allegory ; —
but in some instances their meaning is obscure ; and
of one of the finest subjects of this class by Titian
the key seems to be entirely lost. It is called, for
want, as I think, of the true name, " Sacred and Pro-
fane Love," and is a striking proof of what I have
insisted on — that the Poetry of Art is something
wholly independent on subject : for in this beautiful
work the Poetry is spread all over the canvas.

Had Titian intended the picture for what it is called,
I am confident that he would have felt no difficulty in
characterising the personifications more clearly. But
his meaning is more evident in a lesser work, the
" Ages of Human Life," in the possession of the Earl
of Ellesmere. — On the right of this picture two child-
ren are asleep close to a road (the road of Life). One
has been gathering flowers by the wayside, which are
dropping from his hands, while a third child, who
is the only one winged, is climbing the stem of a
withered tree. In the middle distance an old man
sits on the ground in deep meditation, with a skull
in each hand. Age has brought convictions that are
unthought of by a young shepherd and shepherdess in
the foreground. She is yet but little more than a
child, and the youth seems for the first time to regard
her with love, — while she, wholly unconscious of this,
looks innocently in his face. Nothing can be more
charming than the expression of this pair, though
they might have had more of personal beauty ; and I
remember when I first saw the picture I felt this as a
drawback, which has long ceased to be one with me, for
it is with pictures as in real life, — we cease to think

1 1 8 INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

of the absence of beauty in those with whom we have
become interested by long acquaintance.

In looking at such pictures, however, the allegory is
apt to be forgotten in the actors. In the fine Paul
Veronese, belonging to Mr. Hope, the painter has
represented himself between Virtue and Vice, and
choosing Virtue. Yet he looks back, and no wonder,
for Vice is beautiful to the eye, and the almost
invisible talons that he has placed at the ends of her
fingers do not interfere with the exact symmetry of
her hands and arms. Many other instances might
be mentioned of allegoric invention, in which the
moral intention, to say the least, is rendered nugatory
by the mode of treatment. And even where this is
not the case, we can hardly suppose that any man has
been made better because Hercules (on canvas) pre-
fers good to evil ; or less ambitious of worldly honours,
or less greedy of wealth, because a personification of
wisdom tramples crowns, and sceptres, and jewels,
under her feet.

The truth is, such subjects have probably been
rather chosen with a view to the picturesque than
with any very serious aim, by Paul Veronese and by
Rubens. The picturesque was, indeed, always upper-
most in the mind of the latter, when the choice of
his subject was left to him. In the autograph letter,
preserved at Cologne, he gives as a reason for selecting
the "Crucifixion of St. Peter" as an altar-piece for
the church in which he was christened, that the cir-
cumstance of the head of the Saint being downward
made a novel and fine incident for a picture. This is
the ruling principle also of his magnificent history of

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 119

Mary de Medicis, in a series of subjects which he was
fortunately allowed to treat entirely in his own way ; —
for, however our individual tastes may object to this
or that mode of treatment, it is best always that the
painter should do that which he can best do. When
Reynolds expressed great admiration of a style of
Art unlike his own, Northcote asked him why he did
not attempt it, — and the reply was, " A painter can-
not always do what he may wish, — he must content
himself with doing what he can."

But here I must notice the wide difference between
allegory, in the hands of Paul Veronese and of Ru-
bens, and the noble use to which it may be applied,
as in the example I have taken from Orcagna's
"Triumph of Death," where it is paramount, and so
simply and earnestly expressed as to be intelUgible
to every mind.

At present I say nothing of the powers of invention
and expression displayed by the Dutch and Flemish
painters, as I have devoted a section entirely to the
varied excellences of the great masters of these
schools.

SECTION X

Invention and Expression

INSTANCES TAKEN FROM THE BRITISH SCHOOL

In invention and expression, the only master whose
works, taken altogether, I would compare with those
of Raphael, is Hogarth. Nor is the transition from
the one to the other so sudden as it may at first
sight appear. They were both pre-eminently the
painters of mankind, though the range of subject
they each took, and the peculiar patronage of Ra-
phael, and the no-patronage of Hogarth, made a wide
separation between them. Raphael has given us an
endless variety of images of all that is most dignified,
most pure, and most graceful in our nature, yet
never at the expense of probability ; while Hogarth,
the boldest satirist who ever held a pencil, has
deeply "sounded the base string of humility," and
by the exposure of vice illustrated virtue. Yet there
is a common ground on which they meet, — the wide
field of negative character.

Hogarth has been called "a writer of comedy
with the pencil," but there is as much of the deepest
tragedy in his works. Most of tiis subjects are

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

entirely of his own invention ; and in the story of
what may be called his dramas, he adheres more
closely to nature than the generality of even the best
dramatic writers. His profligates and villains never
reform unnaturally at the conclusion of the story, but
die as they have lived, villains and profligates; nor
are there to be found in his conceptions of character
any of those inconsistencies by which dramatic
authors appeal to the passing prejudices of the time,
or seek to propitiate a mixed multitude, — in the ma-
jority of which the moral taste is never of the highest
standard. He does not give his prodigals generous
and noble qualities, nor is trickery ever countenanced
in his stories by the practice of people he means to
represent as respectable. In truth, though the stage
seems to have suggested to him the species of Art of
which he may be considered the inventor, yet his
views of life were much too sound to allow him to
adopt the loose notions of stage morality.

Wit was ever at the point of his pencil, and his
humour is inexhaustible, and as rich as the humour of
Shakspeare himself. Extreme as are his incidents,
there is no exaggeration, and the enduring truth of
his representations of life is confirmed by the occur-
rences of every day. Some of his scenes, from
change of manners and fashions, may not be exactly
acted now, but his characters are eternal. He has
been charged with caricature, and the City volunteers
attending the Lord Mayor's Procession, the slight
etching called "France," and one or two other
instances from among his numerous productions,
may fairly be given up as caricature; but, taken

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

altogether, nothing can be more distinct than the
Art of Hogarth from that of the caricaturist — a
distinction which he has well pointed out in the
etching he pubhshed to refute the charge.

No painter whatever, and but few writers, have laid
bare the evil dispositions of human nature, and their
inevitable consequences, with such a mastery of illus-
tration. From his moral teaching there is no escape.
No palliation of vice will avail before him. Drunken-
ness cannot shelter itself under the mantle of good-
fellowship, nor lust assume the name of love. He has
traced wickedness and profligacy through all the
degrees of villainy, recklessness, passion, hypocrisy,
and cunning, cold, calculating selfishness. Yet, never
losing sight of Nature, he here and there shows us
touches of good, — and often, as in the world, where
we least expect it. The squat little servant in the
" Harlot's Progress " is not introduced merely by way
of contrast to the beauty of her mistress ; she is faith-
ful to her in adversity, and receives her last breath
while the doctors are quarrelling about their nostrums,
and the housemaid is robbing the dying woman. The
episode, in the " Rake's Progress," of the poor girl's
story to whom he has broken a promise of marriage,
is very touching. She offers her hard earnings to
release him when he is arrested for debt, — she follows
him to prison, and ministers to him in the last scene
of his wretched career, the mad-house. In the " Elec-
tion Dinner," also, in the midst of corruption and
disorder, a poor tailor steadily resists the bribe of a
handful of gold almost forced upon him, while his
masculine termagant wife threatens him with her ven-

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 123

geance for having a conscience; and in another of
the election pictures, the "Polling," the dignity of
human nature is supported by the maimed veteran who,
having lost both hands and a leg in the service of his
country, has contrived to place his hat reverently
under the stump of one arm, while he lays the hook
which serves him for a hand on the Bible.

It is clear from these and many other incidents of a
like kind spread through Hogarth's pictures, that had
he been a writer he never would have conceived Swift's
"Yahoos." His heart would not have allowed him,
much less his judgment — for he knew that in the degree
in which satire is exaggerated it always loses its power.

Walpole remarks that the severity of Hogarth's
satire is " tempered with benevolence ; " and his calling
our attention to the frequent union of virtue, not only
with the homely, but with the ridiculous, is among
the proofs of this. If he had not an elevated sense
of beauty, I know not any painter in whose works
so many extremely pretty female faces are to be found ;
and though they are often given to negative characters,
yet he could combine great beauty and delicacy of
feature with utter physiognomical depravity, as in some
of the women in the third plate of the " Rake's Pro-
gress." On the other hand, he has noticed that
great worthiness is often connected with the reverse of
beauty. The poor tailor I have mentioned, who at
the election dinner steadily resists a large bribe almost
forced on him, squints ; and so does the faithful servant
of the drunken freemason who conducts his master
home through the perils of the fifth of November.
The seamstress, also, who throughout the series of

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

the " Rake's Progress " forgets all the injuries of her
worthless seducer, and endeavours to alleviate his
miseries in a mad-house, has by no means so much
of personal beauty as Hogarth has bestowed on the
actress rehearsing the part of Juno, among the strollers,
in a barn,^ and on the Helen of his Southwark Fair,"
who, as she beats her drum to collect an audience,
has attracted, without being apparently conscious of
it, not only the admiration, but the profound respect
of a couple of peasants, one of whom, as he walks by
her side with his eyes riveted to her face, dares not
put his hat on his head.

It has been erroneously stated that the picture of
" Southwark Fair was destroyed by fire. But it is in
the possession of the Duke of Newcastle, by whose
kindness the public have lately had an opportunity of
seeing it at the British Institution. It differs con-
siderably in effect of light and dark from the print, and
we see more distinctly in it what Hogarth intended as
the principal points. His was a genius that delighted
to touch, and knew how to touch, the master-chords
of human nature ; and, in the foreground groups of
this picture, the admiration of beauty by man, and
of valour by woman, are the things on which the chief
lights are thrown. A group, of which a young woman
is the principal, are gazing in wonderment at the prize-
fighter, who is just entering the scene with his bald
head uncovered to show the many wounds his skull

^ The exquisite prettiness of this lady is only to be seen in
the first state of the plate. No admirer of Hogarth can be con-
tent without possessing all the variations of his engravings, and
to an artist the alterations he made in retouching them are full
of instruction.

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 125

has sustained. The simple but enthusiastic admiration
expressed in the face of the country girl for this grim
fellow baffles all attempt at description. The same
face in the print, though engraved by Hogarth himself,
conveys but a faint notion of that in the picture.

This girl and the fascinating drummeress, are
among the instances noticed by Coleridge in Hogarth,
of whom he says, " the satirist never extinguishes that
love of beauty which belonged to him as a poet, and
who often introduces a beautiful female as the central
figure in a crowd of humorous deformities ; which
figure, such is the power of true genius, neither acts
nor is meant to act as a contrast ; but diffuses through
all, and over each of the group, a spirit of recon-
ciliation and human kindness; and even when the
attention is no longer consciously directed to the cause
of this feeling, still blends its tenderness with our
laughter ; and thus prevents the instructive merriment
of the whims of Nature from degenerating into the
heart-poison of contempt or hatred."

Hogarth was a painter of Nature, in the highest
sense, as distinguished from a painter of matter-of-fact;
and that he did not aim at mere literal truth is shown
by many little circumstances in his pictures, — among
which may be mentioned the lightning pointed with
an arrow-head in the fourth print of the "Rake's
Progress." The barb is directed against a noted
gaming-house, in St. James's Street, and the expedient
is adopted to attract attention to its direction. Indeed,
close literal representations of many of his scenes
would be utterly intolerable ; and, therefore, as Field-
ing, an author with whom he had much in common.

126 INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

redeemed so coarse a subject as the history of a high-
wayman by a pecuUar treatment far from Hteral, and
by making it a vehicle of general satire, — so Hogarth
has dealt with the scenes of vice he exhibits, in which
the mind is perpetually carried away from what is
presented to the eye by general allusion, by wit, and
by humour. This will be at once understood if we
compare the spirit in which the election pictures are
conceived with the treatment of a subject by Bird
in the same collection — the Museum of Sir John
Soane. Bird's picture is a small one representing a
quarrel in an ale-house. It is a picture of great merit
(for Bird was considered a formidable rival to Wilkie),
extremely natural — indeed, painted to the life ; but
it does not rise even near to Hogarth's Art. It is
an exhibition of humanity in its most repulsive form,
with no redeeming touch of good ; and as it suggests
nothing beyond the mere subject, we are glad to
escape from it, and much the more for its literalness
— while the "Election Entertainment," though there
is violence and even death in it, detains us willingly.
In this picture the mayor, who is at the head of the
table, dies of repletion while still holding in his
hand a fork on which an oyster is impaled. In the
same spirit Fielding, in describing the death of Jona-
than Wild, instead of sickening the reader by graphic
details of an execution, dismisses his hero with a
corkscrew in his hand, which he tells us Jonathan
'''-carried out of the world with him^^^ having contrived,
notwithstanding his arms were pinioned, to pick it
from the pocket of the Ordinary. In the picture of
which I am speaking — one of the richest of all Hog-

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 127

arth's works — a clown in the foreground has got his
head broken for carrying a flag on which is written^
" Give us our eleven days," — in allusion to the altera-
tion of the style by parliament, and by which the
people were led to suppose they were cheated out of
eleven days ; an admirable satire on the power pos-
sessed by demagogues over the populace.

The second picture of the " Election " series is a
charming composition. Hogarth has chosen the most
genial season of the year. The landlady of a country
inn is sitting at a door overshadowed by a grape-vine.
In a balcony above, two ladies are enjoying the fresh
air, and on the opposite side of the picture a cobbler
and a barber are discussing the siege of Portobello,
while taking a social pot and pipe together. The
whole scene is fraught with the elements of comfort
and peaceful enjoyment. But the demon of party has
entered it. Bribery is going on in the foreground, and
riot verging on rebellion in the middle distance, where
a mob is attacking a rival inn, and pulling down the
sign of the Crown. Nothing can be finer than the
contrasts in this picture. Immediately from the group
of rioters the eye falls on a peaceful farm-house, with
the blue smoke of its chimney curling up among the
trees that embosom it, and just beyond is the quiet
and happy-looking village that has sent out its ex-
cited inhabitants to the scene of outrage.

Tragedy and comedy are united by Hogarth with
the same truth to Nature, and the same relief of each
other by contrast, with which they are united by
Shakspeare. Thus, in the prison scene in the " Rake's
Progress," where the foreground groups present

128 INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

nothing but misery, and the infuriated wife of the
spendthrift is in the act of striking her wretched hus-
band, while the poor woman whom in early life he
had ruined, and who has followed him to prison, is
in a fit, — an open space between these groups shows
us the figure of an alchemist, tranquilly engaged with
his furnace and crucibles, whose deep and quiet ab-
straction is of the highest value in the way of relief,
and so likewise is the introduction of the poor author,
who is helping to recover the fainting woman, while
his scheme for paying the debts of the nation drops
from his hand. I need not point out the admirable
and exquisitely humorous contrasts of physiognomy
throughout his pictures, a principle that escaped the
Dutch painters, with the exception of Jan Steen.

In the treatment of accessories, Hogarth stands
alone. How much of meaning and of humour is there
in the display of the articles purchased at auction by
Lady Squanderfield from the collection of Sir Timothy
Babyhouse, and with which her negro page is amusing
himself ! ^ The collection of hats, also, on the floor
in the second plate to the "Analysis of Beauty," how
comical and how full of character it is ! We fancy a
face to every hat.

The ingenuity with which he often makes the most
apparently trifling objects in his pictures tell a story
or suggest a moral, and frequently in the obscurest
corners of his compositions, is equally without a
parallel Indeed, after we have made ourselves ac-
quainted with all his leading incidents, there is

^ Walpole, who, though he relished Hogarth's wit, was not
altogether satisfied with him, does not notice these.

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 129

scarcely one of his pictures in which, if we search
diligently, we shall not find latent touches of the
highest relish — small objects serving a double and
sometimes a treble purpose. In the marriage scene
in the " Rake's Progress," in which the hero, having
dissipated his patrimony, appears at the altar with an
ancient heiress, we are shown the interior of Old
Marylebone Church, at that time standing in an out-
of-the-way part of the suburbs, and therefore resorted
to for stolen marriages, or marriages of which either
of the parties had any reason to be ashamed. The
church, a very small one, is in a neglected condition,
and cracks in the walls, mildew, and cobwebs, would
occur to an ordinary painter ; but Hogarth has shown
a fracture running through the table of the Command-
ments— the Creed is defaced by damp, and he has
placed a cobweb over the opening in the charity box.
Again, an empty phial, labelled " laudanum " lies at
the feet of the expiring viscountess in the last scene
of the "Marriage k-la-Mode;" but this was not
enough, he has placed close to it the "last dying
speech of Counsellor Silver-Tongue," suggesting that
it was the death of her lover and not of her husband
that caused her to swallow poison.

His ingenuity is endless in the expression of what-
ever he wishes to convey. In the din of street noises,
which his enraged musician tries in vain to shut out
of his ears, he unites the sounds of a dustman's bell,
a ballad- singer, a hautboy -player, a knife-grinder, a
paviour, etc. Not far off is the sign of a pewterer, and
then, in the distance, he shows us that the church bells
are ringing, by the flag that waves from the steeple.

K

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

There is no surer test of a painter's feeling for
Nature than the manner in which he represents child-
hood. In Hogarth v/e often find the same charm,
arising from its want of sympathy with grown-up life,
that I have noticed in the works of Raphael. The
Boy Mourner, in the picture of the " Harlot's Funeral,"
winding up his top, "the only person in that assem-
bly," as Lamb remarks, "that is not a hypocrite," is an
instance of this, and so is the same boy in the pre-
ceding picture, the dying scene. The pretty little girl
in the "Election Entertainment," who is examining
the ring on the fine gentleman's finger, and the two
little urchins creeping slowly to school, through Covent
Garden Market, their very short footsteps marked in
the snow, in his picture of " Morning," are also ex-
quisite specimens of childhood.

There is a charming picture by Hogarth at Holland
House, in which children are the principal personages.
It represents the private performance of a play at the
house of Mr. Conduit, the Master of the Mint, before
the Duke of Cumberland and a few other people of
rank and fashion. Three girls and a boy are on the
stage, and seem to be very seriously doing their best ;
but the attitude and expression of one little girl, on a
front seat among the audience, is matchless. She is so
entirely absorbed in the performance, that she sits bolt
upright, and will sit, we are sure, immovably, to the
end of the play, enjoying it as a child only can, and
much the more because the actors are children. — The
picture is beautifully coloured, and is one of those
early works painted from Nature, the execution of
which prepared the way to Hogarth's greater efforts.

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 131

Connected with his love of children, may be
noticed the interest he took in the establishment of
the FoundHng Hospital, to the funds of which he con-
tributed, by giving three pictures, which, with the
works of other artists, formed the first public exhibi-
tion in London. His fine portrait of Captain Coram
was one of these ; but his choice of the " March to
Finchley," a satire on the vices of the army, as a sub-
ject for an hospital of foundlings, was a touch of
humorous satire.

So difficult is it, and in many cases so impossible,
for a painter to explain his entire meaning on canvas,
that it is to be regretted Hogarth did not leave a
written key to his stories, in which, in a very few
words, he might have guarded against all doubt as to
the more important passages in them, that are involved
in obscurity; which, after all, are very much fewer
than might have been expected in narratives so rich
in incident. The third picture of the series of the
" Marriage a-la-Mode" is the one which has, more than
any other of his works, puzzled his commentators. For
my own part, I cannot but think that it has a deeper
meaning than has generally been supposed. I believe
the expression of the elder female to be that of jealousy.
On no other ground can her furiously-vindictive look
be accounted for. The indignation of the viscount is
directed against the quack only, for he would not lift
his cane to a woman. She is still in the prime of
life, and with a face which, though now distorted with
passion, we may imagine, in a calmer mood, to be
handsome. The clasp-knife, which she holds out of
sight, is intended for her rival, and Hogarth, as I

132 INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

think, meant to show how vices that the world con-
siders as comparatively venial often lead to the blackest
crimes.

Hazlitt has certainly mistaken the painter's mean-
ing in the young girl, the object, as I believe, of this
woman's rage. He says — "Nothing can be more
striking than the contrast between the extreme soft-
ness of her person and the hardened indifference of
her character." The truth is, she is a child, not har-
dened by vice, for she is too young, but the victim to
a refinement in infamy imported from France, and of
which the then reigning sovereign set the example.
There can be little doubt but the quack, who is a
Frenchman, is the pimp in this case, and, viewing the
subject in this light, the story seems to me to be quite
clear. Hogarth saw with honest indignation how
much more readily the fashionable world of England
has always adopted the corruption of the Continental
countries rather than their refinements or their vir-
tues,— and he never lost an opportunity of exposing
this base species of imitation.

I fancy I see much more in this poor child than
"docility to vice." The finery with which she has
been loaded, like a victim for sacrifice, is evidently
that of some elder predecessor, for the dress she wears
is much too long for her. This child, and that of
the viscountess herself, in the last picture, are alike,
though in different ways, — intended to show the irre-
parable evils so often inflicted on the innocent by the
thoughtlessness of the vicious. The iron on the leg
of the little girl in the last picture tells a sad tale of
inherited infirmity and neglect.

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 133

And yet Hogarth, who painted these things, has
been charged with prostituting his Art at the sugges-
tion of a vicious patron, though it has been added
that he afterwards repented having done so. The
latter assertion cannot, however, be true, for he not
only published engravings of the only two of his pic-
tures considered objectionable, — but when the plates
were worn he retouched them, and continued to sell
the impressions to the end of his life.

That Hogarth, the uncompromising satirist of the
vices of all classes, who lashed the old masters for
appealing to the passions in subjects taken from the
scandalous chronicle of Olympus — that Hogarth, manly
and thoroughly English as was his nature, should thus
desecrate his Art, would involve a degree of inconsis-
tency, from the charge of which I should be glad to
relieve his memory ; and I think this may be done,
though I am aware that in attempting it I am ventur-
ing on hazardous ground.

The pictures in question tell a tale, as I think, of
seduction and desertion, in a manner far more cal-
culated to excite compassion for the victim, and de-
testation for her betrayer, than any feeling of levity,
and, indeed, with much less of grossness, as the com-
mentators on them acknowledge, than may be found
in many of his other works against the tendency of
which no objection has ever been made. If his mode
of treating these subjects, his mode, indeed, of treating
all, is one which would not be tolerated in the present
state of taste, I can only say that the taste of the
present age tolerates very much in Art that is, in
reality, far more objectionable. He shows us, in these

134 INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

pictures, that the mind of a young woman religiously
brought up has been corrupted, previous to her ruin,
by licentious books that have, no doubt, been fur-
nished to her for that purpose ; for in her table-drawer
a Prayer-book and " The Practice of Piety are mixed
with books of an immoral tendency. In the first
picture the falling looking-glass is very significant;
its surface is bright and without a flaw, — in the second
it lies on the ground in fragments. Here she is in
tears, and evidently imploring that she may not be
deserted, — while it is as evident from the countenance
of her seducer that she has little to hope from his
honour — he thinks of nothing but himself There are
touches of humour in these as in all Hogarth's works ;
but the impression they make is a very sad one, and I
have not a doubt they were painted as well with the
intention of warning the innocent against danger, as of
awakening remorse in the guilty.

The failure of Hogarth in subjects from Sacred
History has been sufficiently dwelt on ; yet it must
be remarked (and fully admitting his failure) that even
in these he has touches which distinguish them from
the productions of commonplace minds. In the
"Pool of Bethesda," a rich woman is waiting to be
healed, while her sen. ant drives a poor one away ;
and in the " Moses before Pharaoh's Daughter," the
child clings to his mother's girdle, who is about to be
discharged after having performed the office of his
nurse. She is receiving her wages, which the treasurer
disburses somewhat unwillingly; while the mother
thinks much less of the money than of parting with
her child ; and her tears show how unfounded are the

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

insinuations which a black slave, who stands behind
the princess, is whispering against his mistress into
the ears of an astonished attendant. If such a treat-
ment be considered as below the dignity of serious
history, it must, at any rate, be admitted to be in
strict conformity with Nature.

Hogarth, it is true, is often gross ; but it must be
remembered that he painted in a less fastidious age
than ours, and that his great object was to expose
vice. Debauchery is always made by him detestable,
never attractive. He is not, it must be owned, a
ladies^ painter, — for ladies, fortunately for themselves,
know nothing of the life which he chiefly satirised.
But it is no sign of a healthy masculine taste to object
to what Lamb denominates his " strong meat for men."

It must seem, to those who are not intimately
acquainted with the history of British Art, almost
incredible that he could scarcely sell his matchless
pictures at the lowest prices, and that his first eulogist
among people of fashion, Horace Walpole, denied his
merit as a painter. Walpole begins his account by
speaking of Hogarth as one whom he chose to con-
sider "rather as a writer of comedy with the pencil
than as a painter," and throughout his essay he con-
tinues invariably to call him " this author ^ A Rev.
Mr. Gilpin, also writing near the time of Hogarth,
represents him as ignorant of composition. I doubt,
indeed, whether his entire excellence was fully felt by
the public until his works were collected in 1814,
and exhibited at the Gallery of the British Institution.

It was then seen how great a master he was in all
respects. How completely he bent the Art to his

136 INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

will ; and, though alive to all the beauties of Painting,
and rarely neglecting them, yet how steadily he kept
in view the true end of Art — in no case ever permit-
ting a minor excellence in any way to interfere with
his story or expression. The purity of his colour
was then acknowledged, as well as that zest of execu-
tion which tells us that painting was far more a plea-
sure than a labour to him. It is only in the later
pictures of Jan Steen that I have seen faces so full of
life and expression, and yet so slightly touched, as
are many of Hogarth's. — The execution of his " Rake's
Progress," for instance, would be in many parts un-
satisfactory, were it not for the completeness with
which his meaning is always expressed. As an in-
stance of what he could do by the fewest possible
touches, I would mention the brawny arm of the
woman in the first picture of the " Rake's Progress,"
who refuses the handful of money offered to her
daughter.

But it is time to speak of other eminent men of
our school.

With no artist of powers as great as those of
Fuseli were those powers confined within so narrow a
circle ; but within that circle he has expressed the
terror and the evanescence of the world of phantoms,
with a power unequalled by any painter that ever
lived. Perhaps the finest of all his works is the
"Sin and Death;" and in this he has done that
which, had he not done it, we might have thought
impossible — he has embodied Milton's words : —

What seemed his head the likeness of a kingly crown had

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 137

In the " Satan " of Sir Thomas Lawrence (the worst
portrait he ever painted), all is so material as to be
wholly unnatural with reference to the subject. The
body and limbs of the fiend are as solid as the shaft
of the spear he holds ; and the helmet, sword, and
shield seem borrowed from the property-room of a
theatre. In the " Sin and Death " of Fuseli there are
a ponderous key (the key of the gates of Hell) and a
chain. But they are forged by no earthly smith, and
are not otherwise thought of by the spectator than as
parts of a terrible vision.

If what I have said of his Art may be thought to
contradict my urging the necessity of the study of
Nature to the imaginative painter, I would remark
that he was profoundly acquainted with all in Nature
that could help his conceptions of the visionary. He
was a perfect master of chiaroscuro and of the evanes-
cence of colour, and he possessed such a competent
knowledge of the anatomical structure of the human
figure, as to be able to give ideal probability to
attitudes in which it was impossible he could be
helped by living models. Hence, he could also give
to his ghosts that general and uncertain look that
belongs to shadowy beings, without the omission of the
leading characteristics of form ; and his breadth, to
borrow an expression of his own, is never " emptiness."
Fuseli, therefore, was as much indebted to the know-
ledge of Nature for his power in the visionary as
to his imagination ; and it was in a great measure the
want of such knowledge that rendered the Art of
Blake abortive. Everybody can laugh at the extrava-
gances that so often disfigure the works of Fuseli.

138 INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

But it would require eloquence equal to his own to do
justice to his finest things ; and, in spite of his great
faults, I cannot but look on him as a great genius,
a genius of whom the age in which he lived was
unworthy.

A striking peculiarity of the British School, in its
most palmy days, is the remarkable diversity of powers
into which it branched. When we turn from Fuseli
to Stothard, it is difficult to believe that Art so con-
trasted as theirs should have been contemporaneous.
In nothing were these two extraordinary men alike,
save in being extraordinary. Far more apart than
Michael Angelo and Raphael, the difference was
increased rather by the distance of Fuseli from
Michael Angelo, than by that between Stothard and
Raphael.

For more than half a century Stothard was engaged
in illustrating not only the contemporary literature
of his country, but the works of her best poets, from
the time of Chaucer to his own ; his employers, with
the exception occasionally of the goldsmiths, being
the booksellers. By these he was engaged in every
species of composition, from illustrations of Homer
and Shakspeare, to designs for spelling-books and
pocket almanacs, fashions for the Ladies^ Magazine^
portraits of popular actors and actresses, in character,
as well as other subjects of the day, such as " Balls
at St. James's,'^ — "The Employments of the Royal
Family," — "The King going out with the Fox-
Hounds," etc. ; and numbers of his early designs are
from novels and poems, the very names of which are
now only preserved in his beautiful Art. By the

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 139

goldsmiths he was employed in designing ornaments
for plate, from the Wellington Shield to spoon-
handles for George IV.

The species of his employment formed his style,
which, resulting from the haste required by tradesmen,
appeared slight and unsubstantial by the side of the
pictures of artists who were enabled to give more
time to their productions. His practice, also, limited
the size of his works; and with people, therefore,
who jiidge of pictures, in any degree, by the space
they occupy on the walls of galleries, or the quantity
of minute detail within that space, Stothard will rank
as a painter of minor importance; while all who
estimate Art by the soul that lives in it, will place
him with the very few painters who have possessed
imaginations of the highest order, and have yet
restrained themselves from overstepping "the modesty
of Nature."

It must, however, be acknowledged, that it is in his
smallest pictures and drawings only that we feel there
is nothing more to be desired; — when he repeated
his subjects on a larger scale, which he sometimes
did for the Exhibition, they have in general too
much the character of magnified sketches. This
may have made him say, near the close of his Hfe,
"I feel that I have not done what I might have
done." Yet, perhaps, this is the feehng at last of
every painter.

It is scarcely possible but that among the thou-
sands of Stothard's productions repetitions of himself
should not occur ; nor that he should not occasionally
have adopted ideas suggested by the Antique or by

I40 INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

the old masters. He not seldom reminds us of
Raphael, often of Rubens, and often of Watteau ; —
but he does so as one worthy to rank with them, and
as they remind us of their predecessors. Yet his
works will bear the deduction of every such instance
of imitation, and of every repetition of himself, and
we shall be surprised to see how much of the most
beautiful original imagery will remain. His designs
for the "Novelist's Library" remind us of no other
painter. In these, all is direct from Nature, — and as
many of the novels in this collection were not very
fir in date from his own time, he gave the dresses
of his day and the style of furniture.

These charming works gained him first the admira-
tion and then the friendship of Flaxman ; for, on see-
ing one of them in a shop-window, the great sculptor
determined to make the acquaintance of an artist
with whose taste his own was so nearly allied. In
Stothard's illustrations of the "Pilgrim's Progress,"
sixteen in number, there are images of holiness, of
purity, and of childlike innocence, worthy of that
beautiful poem, and they are as graceful to the eye
as to the mind, the Art entirely aiding the sentiment.
The one from among them which I should select as
peculiarly an effusion of his own mind, for I can see
in it no resemblance to any other painter, is that in
which Christian is received by Discretion, Prudence,
Piety, and Charity, into the Palace Beautiful. Another
series ot his designs, and which, though quite distinct
from these, is evidently one in which he took great
delight, is from " Robinson Crusoe ; " and in looking
at some of these, one is almost more impressed with

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 141

the solitude of the shipwrecked man than in reading
the book.

This is peculiarly the case in the plate in which
Crusoe wanders listlessly through a wood with a gun
on each shoulder, and attended by his dog; while,
from among those, from that part of the story in
which he is no longer solitary, I should select, as the
finest in expression, the conversation between him
and the young Roman Catholic priest, in which the
latter impresses on him the importance of religious
instruction to his little colony.

It was remarked by Stothard that there was nothing
more difficult than to paint people doing nothing. In
his picture of a procession of the girls of the Masonic
Charity School,^ he has encountered this difficulty,
and when it is considered that he was obliged to
make portraits, and, therefore, show the faces of all
the nearest figures, he has overcome it with wonder-
ful skill ; and it was the straightforward simplicity and
unaffectedness of his nature that led him to this
triumph ; and enabled him to make it one of the most
original and interesting pictures ever painted. It may
be said he has merely painted the facts of the subject ;
and it is his greatest praise that he has done this, for
a less natural painter would have spoilt it by embel-
lishment.

Stothard's humour is as true and as dehcate as that
of Addison. His illustrations of the " Spectator " are
therefore perfect ; but the picture in which he has dis-

1 In the possession of Miss Burdett Coutts. There is an in-
different engraving of it by Bartolozzi, from which the picture
cannot be judged.

142 INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

played the most of discrimination of character is his
'^Canterbury Pilgrims." The personages of Chaucer
all seem to pass before our eyes as if they were shown
to us by a painter contemporary with the poet. If
one has less of the real character than the rest, it is
perhaps the Wife of Bath." She seems too young
and too graceful for the merry dame who had buried
five husbands. Yet he has well contrived to make it
evident that her talk and laugh are loud, by their
attracting the attention of those who are riding before
and behind her, as well as of the persons closest to
her.

His constant friend, the venerable author of the
" Pleasures of Memory," possesses many of the finest
of his works, and delights in pointing out the refine-
ments of expression with which they abound. Among
them is a vignette drawing of the Turk who, in the
Arabian story, sees his turban, the folds of which con-
tain his money, carried away by a kite. The be-
wildered Mussulman claps his hand on his bald head,
as if the evidence of one sense were not sufficient to
assure him of his loss. In a design, the subject of
which is Gil Bias attending his master, the Canon, at
dinner, Mr. Rogers noticed to me that the old epicure,
while putting a spoonful of soup into his mouth, is
devouring with his eyes a dish which Gil Bias is about
to place on the table.

Like Hogarth, Stothard rarely had recourse to the
model in Painting. The minds of both were so com-
pletely filled with a store of imagery collected imme-
diately from Nature, and so vividly was this store
preserved, that they could at will select and embody

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 143

on canvas whatever was most appropriate to the
subject in hand. The operation of Painting is always
an exercise of memory, — for even with a model in
the room, the transfer of what the painter sees is but
a recollection, and the difference between those who
can only paint with models at hand, and those who,
like Hogarth and Stothard, and many, no doubt,
among the old masters (of whom Michael Angelo
must certainly have been one), can draw on the stores
of their minds for their models, — the difference be-
tween such is only that the latter class have the power
of retaining images longer in their memories than
others — a power no doubt in a great degree to be
acquired. Hogarth tells us that he set himself to
acquire it, — and he certainly did so to an extraordinary
extent. He belonged to a very different class of
painters from those who sit at home and consult en-
gravings, or their copies of pictures, for precedents.
His habits seem to have been anything but seden-
tary,— and I know that Stothard's were not. When
not engaged at his easel, his time was almost always
spent in long walks through the streets and suburbs
of London. In the summer he was fond of country
excursions ; and for one entire summer, as I have heard
him say, he and one or two companions lived in a
tent, on the banks of the Medway,^ where they hired
a boat and spent days in sailing.

While speaking of the English School I must not
omit to notice a truly original genius, who, though not
a painter, was an artist of the highest order in his

1 In Mr. Bray's Life of Stothard," there is an engraving of
this tent from a drawing by Stothard.

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

way — Thomas Bewick, the admirable designer and
engraver on wood. His works, indeed, are of the
smallest dimensions, but this makes it only the more
surprising that so much of interest could be comprised
within such little spaces. The woodcuts that illustrate
his books of natural history may be studied with
advantage by the most ambitious votary of the highest
classes of Art — filled as they are with the truest feel-
ing for Nature, and though often representing the
most ordinary objects, yet never, in a single in-
stance, degenerating into commonplace. The charm-
ing vignettes that ornament these books abound in
incidents from real life, diversified by genuine humour,
as well as by the truest pathos, — of which the single
figure of a shipwrecked sailor saying his prayers
on a rock, with the waves rising around him, is an
instance.

There is often in these little things a deep meaning
that places his Art on a level with styles which the
world is apt to consider as greatly above it, in proof
of which I would mention the party of boys playing
at soldiers among graves, and mounted on a row
of upright tombstones for horses; while for quaint
humour, extracted from a very simple source, may be
noticed a procession of geese which have just waddled
through a stream, while their line of march is con-
tinued by a row of stepping-stones.

The student of Landscape can never consult the
works of Bewick without improvement. The back-
grounds to the figures of his quadrupeds and his birds,
and his vignettes, have a charm of Nature quite his
own. He gives us in these, every season of the year,

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 145

and his trees, whether in the clothing of summer, or
m the nakedness of winter, are the trees of an artist
bred in the country. He is equally true in his little
home scenes, his farm-yards and cottages, as in his
wild coast scenery with flocks of sea-birds wheeling
round the rocks. In one of these subjects there
stands a ruined church towards which the sea has
encroached, the rising tide threatening to submerge a
tombstone raised "to perpetuate the memory," etc.

Bewick resembles Hogarth in this, that his illustra-
tions of the stories of others are not to be compared
with his own inventions. His feeling for the beauties
of Nature as they were impressed on him directly, and
not at second-hand, is akin to the feeling of Burns,
and his own designs remind me, therefore, much
more of Burns than the few which he made from the
Poet.

In another place I have spoken of the "Death of
Rizzio " as Opie's greatest work. If in this singularly
fine picture the painter has not paid that attention to
exactness of costume that would have been given to
such a subject in the present antiquarian age, nothing
can surpass the life and energy with which he has
brought the dreadful scene before us. We hear the
wretched victim, through whose silken coat his back
seems to writhe and tremble, cry for mercy above the
shouts of his murderers and the rattle of their armour,
while the small white hand of the queen is extended,
among their brawny arms and flashing swords, in a
yam effort to stay them. The suddenness of the action
IS aided by fierce and abrupt gleams of light and
tremendous depth of shadow; and the grandeur of

146 INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

the colour, and the breadth and truth of the whole
picture, even had it no other merit, would worthily
place it with the finest works of Tintoret.

Sir George Beaumont, who had possessed himself
of Hogarth's mahl-stick, determined to keep it till a
painter should appear worthy to receive it; and he
kept it till he saw "The Village Politicians" of
Wilkie. Sir George, who had been insensible to the
extent and variety of Stothard's powers, hailed with
great delight the far more matter-of-fact style of the
young Scot.

Inferior as a colourist to Hogarth, and with in-
finitely less of imagination, Wilkie was still a truly
great painter.

No better example can be pointed out to the
student than that of the industry, the patience, and
the devotion to Art recorded in the history of his
studies ; — how he moved on, as his biographer says,
"like the sunbeam on the wall, slowly a?id brightly.
The change in his style, from the delicate finish of
his small works, to the more general treatment of
subjects on a large scale, was lamented by his
admirers. It was a change, however, he was obliged
to make, because his health no longer permitted that
attention to minute detail which he had carried so
very far. But the public is a hard taskmaster, and
particularly to its favourites, — and it did not willingly
forgive the alteration. Yet in the latter years of his
Hfe he produced some very great works, works which,
could they have been exhibited with a new name,
might perhaps have been more justly treated than
they were by the critics of the day; — such as the

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 147

"Preaching of John Knox," the "Columbus," and
the "Interview between Pius the Seventh and Na-
poleon." The masterly sketches made in those
countries from which he was not destined to return
show how actively (too actively indeed) his fine mind
had been engaged to the very last. Among them I
remember one of the most fascinating representations
of childhood I ever beheld,-the young daughter of
Admiral Walker in an Eastern dress. It was as
beautiful as anything of Reynolds or Gainsborough,
and yet quite unlike either.

I believe all opinions will concur in placing Wilkie's
subjects from familiar and rustic life, with few excep-
tions, highest among his works. Such were the pic-
tures that first made his reputation,— « The Village
Politicians," "The Blind Fiddler," "The Rent Day"
"Duncan Gray," etc.-Of this class, however, the
most elaborately painted, and the fullest in subject
"The Village Festival," in the National Gallery, is
certainly not the one to which I should give the
preference. For though that exquisite delicacy of
touch which marks, more or less, every period of
his art, IS here seen in the greatest perfection, yet
the picture seems to me, in all respects, the most
artificial of his earlier productions. That it gave
him great trouble, is evident from the account of its
progress in his diary.

Among his scenes from domestic life, the two finest
appear to me to be "The Penny Wedding" and the
Distraining for Rent," subjects displaying the most
varied powers. "The Penny Wedding" is equal to
the 'Hallow-e'en" of Burns, or the inimitable de-

148 INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

scription of rustic life in the "Twa Dogs." The joy-
ousness and activity with which the reel is going on to
the music of Neil Gow, — the simple feasting in the
background, where the grace is not forgotten,— and
the satisfaction with which the Howdie, an important
personage on such occasions, and the village doctor
regard the scene, are matchless, and in a manner as
far above all commonplace or vulgarity as it is free
from anything of over-refinement. Wilkie in such
subjects seems as if he were guided by the precept
of Polonius — "Be thou familiar, but by no means
vulgar." But in truth he was guided by his own
gentility of nature.

We feel, in looking at this picture, as we feel in
reading the poems of Burns to which I have com-
pared it, — that such scenes can only be described by
a painter or a poet born and bred north of the Tweed.
This is a merit, and a sterling one it is, of Wilkie's
two subjects from Allan Ramsay's "Gentle Shep-
herd ; " and which, notwithstanding a want of beauty
in the female figures, make us regret that he had not
painted more from the poetry of Scotland. An artist
is always the better for being national.

The picture which I believe would be selected by
painters from among all his works as the most per-
fect specimen of his art, is that of the "Whiskey
Still," painted for Sir Willoughby Gordon. It is an
extremely simple composition, containing but three
figures. An old Highlander is holding up a glass of
whiskey to the light, and seems to be smacking his
lips with the relish of a perfect connoisseur, while a
boy is pouring some of the spirit into a jug, and a

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 149

man in the background is looking toward the High-
lander. Not only in character, but in the entire treat-
ment, in colour and execution, this masterly work
leaves nothing to be desired.

With much less truth of colour, his " Distraining for
Rent displays dramatic powers of the very highest
order. Of a picture so well known by Raimbach's
fine engraving, I need say little ; and, indeed, I know
not how to say anything of its pathos that would not
fall very far short of its impression. But I cannot
help noticing the admirable manner in which Wilkie
has introduced one of the subordinate figures, the
man employed in writing an inventory of the furni-
ture. The consciousness of being a thoroughly un-
welcome visitor is shown in every circumstance con-
nected with this figure. He seems desirous of
occupying the smallest possible space. He has
seated himself on the corner of the bedstead, and
deposited his hat between that and his feet. He
writes on a book held on his knees, and from an ink-
stand held in his hand, not venturing to ask for any
more convenient mode of proceeding with what he has
to do. The sheriff's officer is equally good. He
withstands the storms of threats and reproaches with
which he is assailed by the relations of the distressed
family, and though he grasps his cudgel firmly, he
keeps it somewhat out of sight, and depends more on
the writ he holds in his other hand for protection.
How true to Nature is the dog, too, that has taken
refuge under his master's chair, and looks out from
between his legs with great dissatisfaction towards
the strangers whom he dares not attack. And then

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

the two women — neighbours, near the door ; the one
silent and affected by the scene, the other a gossip
who has left her own affairs to see what is going on
elsewhere. She has the key of her house in her
hand.

The picture Wilkie painted for the Duke of Wel-
lington, for skill in composition, and delicate comple-
tion of detail, is one of his prominent works ; and
though the subject afforded far less scope than many
of his others for dramatic power, there is not in the
Art a finer touch of expression than that of the
anxious face of the woman overlooking the old pen-
sioner who reads to his companions the first news of
the Battle of Waterloo. The contrast of this single
face to all the others that surround the reader is,
indeed, a master-stroke.

When the condition of Wilkie's health no longer
allowed him to continue the elaborate finish that he
had carried so far, and he adopted a more generalised
mode of execution, the change was lamented, and it
became the fashion to compare his latest works dis-
advantageously, and often unjustly, with those before
he made this change. But many great things were
the fruit of his later years. The contest between
Napoleon and Pius VII. is a noble historical picture.
The two unyielding men are admirably contrasted,
and the disappointment of the Emperor at finding an
obstacle to his wishes, in the mind of the Pope,
which seldom was an obstacle in his own mind to
anything he wished, namely, conscience, — as well as
the determination of his character, is expressed not
only in his face, but in his figure from head to foot.

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 1 5 1

It has been objected that he would not have worn his
hat in the presence of the Pope. But instances are
on record of disrespect shown by him to crowned
heads, that fully justify Wilkie in placing the hat
where it is.

Among the great painters of whom I have been
speaking, it may be noticed that Stothard and Wilkie
were both students, and very assiduous students, of
the Royal Academy. Flaxman, Chantrey, Turner,
Constable, Jackson, Haydon, and Etty, also learned
all that an Academy could teach them within the
walls of Somerset House.

I mention these facts, because Academies are some-
times compared to Colleges, and the inference is, that
as Colleges can do little towards producing Poets,
Academies can do little towards producing Painters.
It should be remembered, however, that Poetry makes
use of the language that is common to all, and
though the refinements of that language may not be
acquired without books, yet books are not confined
to Colleges. The Painter, the Sculptor, and the Archi-
tect, on the other hand, have to acquire the mastery
of a language of their own, involving many studies
and much mechanical practice. These can only be
acquired in a school, and under the guidance of expe-
rienced teachers ; and though Academies can neither
create genius nor supply patronage, the two conditions
necessary to the existence of Art, they may materially
assist both.

I believe it will be found generally, that what is
called Academic Art (by way of disparagement), in
other words learned mediocrity^ has preceded their for-

152 INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

mation ; and that when original genius has afterwards
appeared, it has always been benefited by them.
Lebrun, with all his talents, was, in the ordinary sense
of the words, an academic artist^ and he was so before
the establishment of the French Academy. Some
time after that institution had been in operation,
Watteau appeared; not that he was formed by the
Academy, for he was formed by the study of Nature
and the art of Rubens — but the Academy did not
hinder his appearance, nor destroy him after he be-
came one of its members.

But I will go farther back. Neither Raphael nor
Michael Angelo were able to transmit the essence of
their art to their pupils. The art of Raphael died
with him, and if it has in any degree revived, it has
done so in our own Academy, in Flaxman and in
Stothard. Michael Angelo, with all the pains he took,
was unable to make a historical painter of Sebastian
del Piombo, whose genius could not rise above dig-
nified portrait; and Vasari, also the scholar and
enthusiastic admirer of Michael Angelo, became but
the founder of a school of Machinists.

The obligations of Hogarth and of Reynolds to
Academies have been denied. Hogarth, indeed, did
not acquire his Imagination, his inexhaustible fertility
of Invention, his humour or his pathos in an Academy ;
but he acquired his knowledge of the human figure
(without which all these great qualities must have
remained unknown to the world) in the subscription
Academy opened by Sir James Thornhill. It is very
true that Reynolds had not studied in an Academy.
But it was a cause to him of lamentation, not of

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION 153

boasting. Hear his own modest words—" Not having
the advantage of an early academical education," he
says, " I never had the facility of drawing the naked
figure which an artist ought to have." After this we
may fairly say, when we are told of eminent artists
who have not studied in Academies, that it would
have been better for them if they had done so.

It has been said by a modern opponent of all such
Institutions, that "to produce other Raphaels they
must go through the same process that Raphael him-
self went through." This I believe; but I believe
also that the process must be gone through with
powers of mind and delicacy of taste equal to Ra-
phael's ; — and then I doubt not that the success may
be as complete in a modern Academy as it was in the
school of Perugino.^

1 It should be known to the public that all the charges in
the autobiography of Mr. Hay don, unfavourable to the Royal
Academy, are unfounded. The council never made a law, as
there stated, after the students had presented a testimonial to
Fuseli, that they should not again pay such a compliment to an
officer. Many years afterwards the students gave a silver vase
to Mr. Hilton, when keeper, and the same tribute of respect
was paid to his successor, Mr. Jones. It is also untrue, that
the election of Sir Martin Shee to the presidential chair was
hurried through, without the usual forms, in the fear that a
command might be received from the King to elect Wilkie. It
was perfectly well known that George IV. would have been
pleased had the choice fallen upon Wilkie, and equally
known that the King would never interfere with any election of
that body, unless he thought it right to exercise the privilege of
a veto.

Haydon's quarrel with the Academy originated in the belief
that a clique of portrait-painters, in the body, tried to crush

INVENTION AND EXPRESSION

him by placing his Dentatus " in a bad situation. The truth,
however, was quite the reverse. The picture was hung in the
ante-room, in an excellent light, because it was considered that
a good place in that room was better than an indifferent one in
the great room. It was hung where pictures by Sir Joshua
Reynolds had been placed year after year, — where one of the
finest of Lawrence's portraits, the whole-length of Master
Lambton, was afterwards placed, — and where I remember
hanging a picture by Sir Martin Shee, when he was president,
while there were fine pictures by Mr. Roberts and Mr. Her-
bert (not then members) in the same room, but on which
account those gentlemen never thought of quarrelling with the
Academy.

SECTION XI

On Composition

I SHALL here confine myself to the consideration of
composition, as it relates to lines and forms only.

Nature, everywhere, arranges her productions in
clusters;— and to this end she employs a variety of
means. The heavenly bodies are grouped by attrac-
tion, flowers and trees by the natural means by which
they are propagated, while the social instincts con-
gregate man and most other animals into societies,—
and the same instincts impel, in man, as well as' in
many of the inferior creatures, the grouping of their
habitations. Grouping is therefore a universal law
of Nature; and though there are cases in which a
scattered display of objects may, in parts of a com-
position, greatly aid, by contrast, the more compact
portions, and cases in which scattered objects may
help to tell the story, yet in the composition of a
picture, taking the whole together, a scattered general
effect is always a fault.

_ In observing crowds we notice many repetitions of
similar attitudes; and in herds of cattle, flocks of
sheep, etc., we remark this also. Repetitions of
forms and shapes are likewise of frequent occurrence
m trees, flowers, the outlines of mountains, clouds,

156

ON COMPOSITION

etc. Now the picturesque styles of composition, as
they are called, avoid the imitation of these appear-
ances, as too formal for Art ; but this, like every other
rejection of a natural principle, only produces man-
nerism,— which sort of mannerism was carried to its
greatest extreme by the French painters of the time
of Louis XV., painters who are now all but forgotten.

It is true the repetitions of forms and lines, if
managed with too much regularity or appearance of
study, become pedantic; but in the compositions of
Masaccio, of Raphael, and of Poussin, these repeti-
tions have the accidental look of Nature, — and in
the works of the best landscape painters, and particu-
larly of the Dutch and Flemish Schools, we see the
repetitions of forms given with the same unaffected
truth. It is such modes of treatment in which the
true artlessness of Art^ if I may use the expression,
consists ; — artlessness which is indeed the perfection
of Art, and the furthest possible removed from that
artlessness which arises from ignorance, the artless-
ness of very early Art, and of the designs of clever
children.

All improvements in composition, from the infancy
of Painting to its full maturity, are the result of the
gradual discovery of the principles by which Nature
makes assemblages of objects agreeable to the eye, —
sometimes by giving variety to regular forms or
groups, sometimes by giving regularity to forms in
themselves irregular, and always by giving unity to
multitude, and subordination of many objects to one,
or to a few; and in all that relates to forms or to
lines it is chiefly perspective that does these things.

ON COMPOSITION

157

— Linear perspective is, therefore, the basis of linear
grouping, and until its laws were well understood,
composition remained imperfect, whatever beauties
it occasionally put forth being accidentally obtained
by the lucky chance of the correct copying of the
appearances of Nature, but with no certainty of
repetition, the causes of the appearances not being
understood.

Of composition, therefore, before the laws of per-
spective were known, it is more to be wondered at
that we often find it as agreeable as it is than that we
do not find it better. In the works of Giotto we see
beautiful combinations of lines and forms, though
these excellences are rarely sustained through an entire
picture; but when a knowledge of perspective had
settled the two principles of grouping with reference
to background, we find extended composition well
developed.

In turning over, the engravings from the Campo
Santo, the vast superiority in the compositions of
Gozzoli over those of the earlier painters, the result
almost entirely of his knowledge of perspective, is very
striking. It is impossible not to admire the richness
and splendour of his architectural backgrounds, though
sometimes over-profuse in ornament ; but the extensive
picture which concludes the history of Joseph can
scarcely be praised enough. No story was ever more
naturally told — nor grouping more unaffectedly simple.
As was the practice in early Art, several points of time
are united in one composition, and Joseph appears in
three different places ; but, what is most remarkable,
Gozzoli has adopted three different points of sight in

158

ON COMPOSITION

the perspective. The entire composition is, however,
so harmonious, that this violation of a law does not
strike the spectator at the first glance ; and if it be
excusable, the apology is to be found in the fact that
if but one point of sight, which must have been the
central one, only, had been used, the openings which
show the sky and trees, and a distant dome, must
have been shut out, and much that is beautiful lost.
Not that these excuses should constitute a precedent,
for it is always in the power of the painter to adopt
an arrangement that needs them not.

But the example of Masaccio in the treatment of
architecture with reference to figures is perhaps a
better one, and in this he is sometimes to be preferred
even to Raphael ; for in the engravings I have seen
from his works at Florence his backgrounds are
always strictly subordinate.

I have heard the diminutive proportions of the
architecture in the cartoons defended on the ground
that Raphael's object was to give importance to his
figures. But whether it was with this intention or not
that he dwarfed his buildings, I have no hesitation in
saying that it was not necessary to such an end that
he should do so.^ — The large architecture which forms
the background to Titian's great picture in the Church
of the Frari, at Venice, ennobles the composition,
with no loss of consequence to the figures, the dignity

1 It probably arose from his frequent reference to antique
bas-reliefs, in which the diminutive architecture is entirely con-
ventional. The general plan of the Sacrifice at Lystra," is
almost copied from one of these. Yet all in it that is of most
interest, is entirely Raphael's.

COMPOSITION BY ORCAGNA, AND IMITATION OF IT BY RAPHAEL.

ON COMPOSITION

159

and importance of which is the first thing that im-
presses the mind ; nor do the figures in the " Sacra-
ments " of Poussin suffer in the least by the magnitude
of the architecture, which the simplicity of its forms
and the breadth of its light and shadow sufficiently
subordinate to the groups.

But to return to the consideration of perspective.
I know not that I can better point out its great value
than by comparing the upper part of Raphael's
"Dispute of the Sacrament" with the composition
which furnished him with its arrangement. The
" Last Judgment," by Orcagna, in the Campo Santo,
not only suggested the general plan of Michael
Angelo's great work, but its lines of the Apostles
sitting on each side of the Saviour and the Madonna,
furnished the similar arrangement, though not of the
same personages, to the "Dispute of the Sacrament."
The immense superiority of Raphael's composition
need not be pointed out ; my object in the comparison
is merely to observe how much he gained by his
knowledge of perspective, in the elegant semicircular
sweep formed by the cloud that supports the figures
on each side of the Saviour, and the higher and there-
fore still more curved line of the angels above. This
instance of the great value of perspective is the more
striking because the composition is not architectural.

Balance of lines and masses is the great principle
of general composition ; and whether this be obtained
by exact symmetry of parts, as in the "School of
Athens," or by the many other more irregular plans
of arrangement, depends wholly on the subject : — for
one form is not more legitimate than another. Nature

i6o

ON COMPOSITION

delights us in so many different ways, that Art may,
and indeed should, follow her variety if it would
avoid the stagnation of mediocrity, — the invariable
result of too exclusive an attachment to any one
system.

The first thing we are taught by perspective is, that
all objects are apparently altered in magnitude and
shape as they approach or recede from the eye, and
that these alterations are infinitely varied as the points
of distance and of sight are changed. Objects that
are perfectly spherical form the only exceptions I can
think of to this law, their apparent changes being of
size only, and not of shape.

I remember, when I was a student, hearing it argued
that parallel perspective must always be untrue, be-
cause perspective makes all horizontal lines tend
towards points on the horizon, and all perpendicular
lines approach each other to meet in a single point
perpendicular to the point of sight, and that, therefore,
there is no such thing as parallel perspective in Nature.
But, in such reasoning, one important fact is entirely
overlooked, namely, that the plane of the picture
itself is subject to the laws of perspective, and be-
comes altered, more or less, in shape, according to the
point from which we view it, and carries with it
all the lines on its surface that are parallel with,
or perpendicular to, the horizon, exactly as such
lines, in Nature, would be altered by the laws of
vision; — parallel perspective being thus made true
by Nature herself.

I am inclined to think that the vanishing points of
rectangular objects, when represented obliquely to the

ON COMPOSITION

i6i

plane of the picture, should be always placed beyond
its boundary; for though, in photographs from real
architecture, we often see a point of distance chosen
that brings one of the vanishing points within the
picture, yet, even in these, there is an apparent want
of truth, and, certainly, perspective should be so
managed as not only to he true, but to look true. Thd
ceiling of the night-cellar, in which Hogarth's Idle
Apprentice is taken into custody, is a glaring and re-
markable instance of false perspective, arising from
the placing of the vanishing point of its beams within
the composition; and, indeed, this is far from the
only case of such carelessness in this great artist, who
yet took the trouble to publish a print, pointing out
some of the gross errors consequent on ignorance of
perspective.

His facility and taste in composition were, however,
very great ; but some of his interiors would have been
more true, in effect, had he placed his point of distance
farther from the plane of the picture, or been less
fond than he was of oblique perspective. This is
particularly observable in one of the most admirable
of his works, the breakfast scene of the "Mar-
riage k-la-Mode," — in which neither the floor nor the
ceiling appear to be level unless the eye is placed so
close to the picture as to be unable to see any part of
it perfectly. Hogarth seems to have considered it
always proper that the spectator should suppose him-
self to be in the apartment represented. But there is
no absolute necessity for this. The side of the room
not represented may be imagined open, as in many of
Wilkie's compositions, and as in scenes on the stage ;

M

ON COMPOSITION

indeed, it is best, as a general rule, that the distance
of the eye from the composition should be equal to a
line drawn diagonally across the picture from corner
to corner. The Dutch painters of interiors have often
adopted a nearer point of distance, but then they
generally preferred parallel to oblique perspective, and
this choice greatly assists the level look of their floors
and ceiUngs. They often, both in interiors and ex-
teriors, availed themselves of the advantage a near
point of sight gives in introducing one or two long
oblique lines, which, as they managed them, effectually
excluded a tame or commonplace appearance from
compositions in other respects extremely simple.

The knowledge of perspective, like everything else
in which science can render assistance to Art, will be
of little use unless constantly under the direction of
taste. Much of the impression of a picture depends on
the choice of the horizontal line. It was a remark of
Stothard that " grandeur might be obtained either by
a very high or a very low horizon; but when the
horizon is placed in or near the middle of the
picture, grandeur of composition must be sought from
some other principle." In many of his own pictures
we have fine examples of the advantage of a high
horizon, and Titian's " Peter Martyr " affords a noble
instance of the grandeur of a low one ; indeed, Titian's
compositions of the "Death of Abel," "Abraham and
Isaac," and " David and Goliath," owe much of their
impressiveness to the horizon being below the bound-
ary of the picture. This choice was suggested by the
adaptation of those great works to ceilings ; but there
is no reason against such a choice in pictures that are

ST. PETER MARTYR — BY TITIAN.

ON COMPOSITION

to be hung above the eye, and a strong one in favour
of it, namely, that the effect will be truer.

As to lines and forms of beauty, the serpentine line
is unquestionably, in itself and alone, more beautiful
than the straight line, and a round or oval form more
beautiful than a square one. But every line, in turn,
becomes a line of beauty from situation and contrast,
and, in the same way, every form may be made an
object of beauty. — Hogarth recommended the pyra-
midal form of composition as the best ; and though
in his own works we trace much of the pyramid, yet
he did not adhere to it so constantly or so rigidly as
to give too great an appearance of artifice. One
thing may be said in favour of the pyramid, where
the composition rises high above the horizon, — that
it conforms to the law of perspective I have noticed,
by which all perpendicular lines terminate in a
point.

It is not a little curious that, in his eagerness to
support a favourite theory, Hogarth tells us that the
sculptors of the Laocoon made little men of the sons
rather than violate the principle of the pyramid in the
composition of the whole. He had, perhaps, never
seen a cast of the original group, and may have known
it only from bad engravings or copies, otherwise, it is
inconceivable that he could have mistaken the boys
for little men. His " Analysis of Beauty " is, however,
a book that every painter should read, — as it can
never be consulted without profit, if the reader be on
his guard against too implicit a reliance on the reason-
ing of the author, where his theories of the serpentine
one and the pyramid are concerned.

ON COMPOSITION

But, whatever may be the utility of Hogarth's
theories, his practice is as full of instruction in com-
position as it is in all other parts of the art. His
compositions, and particularly where the story requires
an abundance of material, are as full, as rich, and as
varied, as those of Rubens, and with less apparent
artifice. His crowds are always managed with con-
summate skill. No composition was ever more beauti-
fully built up than his " Southwark Fair ; " and the
bold lines of the posts of the falling scaffold in the
foreground, protruding obliquely into the picture,
are of the greatest possible value. Imagine them
away, and the composition loses vastly ; but from such
a work, nothing, even to the most minute object, can
be spared.

To me, the richest of all his pictures, as a composi-
tion, is his " Strolling Actresses." In this matchless
work he revels and luxuriates in lines and forms, with
a happiness equal to his wit and humour. Every
variety of object and shape is here linked together in
a harmony "never ending, still beginning," and all is
steadied by the long beams of the roof above the
motley assemblage of gods and goddesses in rags and
tawdry finery, and by the two sweeping lines of the
ropes depending from a rafter on which some of the
linen of the celestials is hanging to dry. It is by this
contrast of long lines or large objects with a multitude
of small parts, that unity, breadth, and steadiness are
to be gained. In the " March to Finchley," the form
of the flag that rises above the crowd near the centre
of the picture is of inestimable use in connecting the
two wings of the composition, — and of great value

ON COMPOSITION

165

also, in such a crowd, is the flat board on the head of
the pieman : — and these instances may serve to direct
attention to many other of the feUcitous contrivances
by which a great painter courts the favour of the
eye.

A very striking excellence of Hogarth's composi-
tions is their perspicuity. The eye is never misled
or confused, even in his fullest or most complicated
subjects ; but every object, from the largest to the
smallest, tells at once for what it is intended, — yet
never obtrusively, never at the expense of the general
masses.

As we are indebted to the antique for the best
standard of human form, we also derive from the same
source much valuable suggestion as to the shapes and
castings of draperies, and other elegances by which
the human figure may be adorned, and its expression
aided. But in the imitation of these things, particu-
larly in the casting of draperies, we must never lose
sight of the differences between Painting and Sculp-
ture. The close adherence, for instance, of the gar-
ment to the limb, showing its form distinctly through
it, may be a beauty in Sculpture, but unless accounted
for by rapid action, or the effect of wind, it may be-
come a defect in Painting, — a defect we more often
find in Michael Angelo than in Raphael. Michael
Angelo, indeed, sometimes gives an utterly impossible
appearance of the forms of the body through the
draperies, but these are among the freaks of genius
that should never be imitated. Draperies that en-
tirely conceal the figure, by their amplitude, often
impart a grandeur to the most ordinary attitudes.

i66

ON COMPOSITION

Early Christian Sculpture abounds in fine examples
of this, — as do the works of Giotto, Angelico, Mas-
accio, and many of the early Italian painters; and
more grace may be often added by length of line to
attitudes in themselves graceful, as the long riding
habit worn by ladies gives additional elegance to the
manner in which they sit on horseback.

In speaking of drapery, I must again refer to Raphael
as a master beyond most others worthy of study ; for
nowhere is his admirable taste more conspicuous
than in the dressing of his figures. He neither over-
loads them, nor are his lines ever poor or meagre.
Action is always aided by the streaming or fluttering,
or slighter movement of the dress, and grace made
more graceful.

A previous position of the figure may often be in-
dicated by the manner in which part of the dress lies
on the ground, or on some other near object; and
there are even fanciful modes by which action or
meaning may be assisted by drapery. From the
shoulders of the visionary figures of St. Peter and St.
Paul, in the "Attila," their mantles are in part
detached, so as to suggest wings; and, in the
"Jonas" of Michael Angelo, the drapery of the
prophet is thrown into forms resembhng the head
and tail of a large fish.

Flaxman compares drapery to language. " As the
beauties of the mind,'' he says, " are seen through and
adorned by language, so the graces of the figure are
set off by drapery." And his own outlines from
Homer, ^schylus, Hesiod, and Dante, furnish beauti-
ful illustrations of the valuable remarks on drapery

ON COMPOSITION

167

contained in his lectures. The manner in which his
flying figures, now poised in the air, now cutting it
with extreme rapidity, and now gracefully floating in
space, are aided by their garments, is beyond all
praise. Yet, admirable as they are, the painter, in
studying them, must not forget that they are the
draperies of a sculptor, whose Art admits more of the
conventional, in composition, than Painting.

Flaxman's parallel between drapery and language
may be carried farther ; for the well-known witticism,
attributed to Talleyrand, that "language was given to
man to enable him to conceal his thoughts," is not
inapplicable to the usefulness of drapery in concealing
the defects of the body. The preposterous fashion of
hoop-petticoats, which was carried to its utmost ex-
treme in Spain, in the reign of Philip IV., originated
in no good ; cravats are said to have been introduced
to hide scrofulous throats ; and padding the chest is
now considered essential to the manliness of the
military figure. But the hypocrisy of dress stands no
more in need of illustration than the hypocrisy of
language. Both are fruitful subjects for the satirist,
and by Hogarth every absurdity of the fashions of his
time was treated with matchless humour.

Few but must have noticed that the most elegant
dress ever fails to adorn some figures ; the very folds
of a shawl fall awkwardly on vulgar or awkward
persons. When Autolycus appears in the Prince's
dress, the shepherd remarks that "his garments are
rich, but he wears them not handsomely." But where
there is native grace and inborn gentility, the most
ordinary attire seems often to dispose itself to advan-

i68

ON COMPOSITION

tage, without the least care or study on the part of the
wearer. Sterne felt this when he said, "The sweet
look of goodness that sat upon my uncle Toby's brow
assimilated everything around it so sovereignly to
itself, and Nature had, moreover, wrote gentleman with
so fair a hand in every line of his countenance, that
even his tarnished gold-laced hat, and huge cockade
of flimsy taffeta, became him ; and, though not worth
a button in themselves, yet, the moment my uncle
Toby put them on, they became serious objects, and
seemed picked up by the hand of science to set him
off to advantage."

In such instances, the charm is communicated by
the wearer to the dress. In Art, the taste of the
painter must do this, and either turn every change of
fashion to advantage with Reynolds, or invest the
torn caps and the rags of peasant children and
cottage girls with the artless grace of Gainsborough.
But though neither he nor Reynolds could explain
their secret, nor can we hope to discover it by look-
ing at their works, yet we may be sure that if we
really feel their refinement — a refinement far from all
vulgar notions of elegance — w^e shall never stand be-
fore their best pictures without some good to our-
selves. When Reynolds was asked how he could
bear to paint the cocked hats, bonnets, wigs, etc., of
his time, he answered, "They have all light and
shadow."

Painting has lent itself to every fashion that has
appeared in the civilised world, and, in the hands of
the great masters, has shown that every fashion, what-
ever its extravagance, may be turned to good account

ON COMPOSITION

169

as illustrating manners or character. And here I
must again notice the conduct of Hogarth, whose
attention to the costume of his day has sometimes
been considered as confining his satires too much
to the era in which he lived, and therefore a fault.
But as his object was to show

" The very age and body of the time,

Its form and pressure " —

we must judge him by what he intended, and we shall
find that, like a great genius, he has accomplished
more than he intended. Indeed, it is having done
this that led to the objection I have noticed.

Where the dresses of his time were not beautiful
they were always picturesque, and he has availed
himself of their forms, in this respect, with as much
of taste as he has shown of judgment and humour in
rendering them the assistants of character. The dif-
ferent ranks of society, as well as the different pro-
fessions and occupations of men, were far more
marked to the eye by dress a hundred years ago
than they are now, and this was an immense advan-
tage in painting subjects from real life. Indeed, I
cannot see how it would have been possible for
Hogarth to have told his stories, with less attention
than he paid to the fashions of the day, while his
pictures would have lost greatly in humour, point,
and satire. One of the prevailing follies of that time
was the imitation by Englishmen of French manners
and of French fashions, and this he never omitted
any opportunity of holding up to ridicule. The
young bridegroom in the first picture of the "Mar-

I/O

ON COMPOSITION

riage a-la-Mode " has transformed himself, as entirely
as he could outwardly do so, into a Paris beau ; and
so have the emaciated fop and antiquated belle in his
"Taste in High Life." The gentlemen, also, who
are seen in the side boxes above his "Laughing
Audience," and who are too well bred to care for the
play, have undergone the same transformation. And
in all this Hogarth is borne out by contemporary
authors ; for the innkeeper in Goldsmith's play con-
cludes that Marlow and Hastings may be Londoners
because "they look woundily like Frenchmen."

The works of this most genuine English painter, it
is true, must be studied to be understood, — not, how-
ever, because of their obscurity, but because of their
great depth and fulness ; and as Shakspeare is in no
danger of ever wanting commentators, neither, I am
persuaded, is Hogarth.

SECTION XII

On Colour and Chiaroscuro

After seeing all the fine pictures in France, Italy,
and Germany,'^ writes Wilkie, "one must come to
this conclusion, that colour, if not the first, is, at
least, an essential quality in Painting. No master has
yet maintained his ground^ beyond his own time^ without

it:'

It was, perhaps, very much from modesty that
Reynolds placed the things he so greatly excelled
in lower than I think they should be placed among
the attributes of Art. It was natural that he should
not think the most highly of what he found so easy ;
but as I have not the same reason for undervaluing
colour and chiaroscuro, I will endeavour to show
why I venture to dissent on these points from so
high an authority.

In the first letter which he addressed to The Idler^
he speaks of " critics who are continually lamenting
that Raphael had not the colouring and harmony of
Rubens, or the light and shadow of Rembrandt, with-
out considering how much the gay harmony of the
former or the affectation of the latter would take
from the dignity of Raphael.*' Now I think the
following reply to this might fairly be suggested on

172 ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO

behalf of the critics. The colouring and harmony of
Rubens, instead of injuring the dignity of Raphael,
would, if applied with the discrimination with which
Raphael was sure to apply them to his works, unite
with it, and add to their value. Imagine, for in-
stance, the " Galatea " with the tone and harmony of
Rubens, and the image of a work is immediately
presented to the mind of far greater perfection than
that picture in its present state ; and that the colour
of Rubens may be accommodated to all that is most
pathetic, we have a striking proof in his "Descent
from the Cross.'' Whatever may be the deficiency
of this great work in historical dignity, arises from the
grossness of form and want of elevation of character
in some of the personages. It may be objected,
also, that the dress of the Magdalene is too modern,
but the expression of her face, little as we see of it,
the grief and reverence with which she receives in
her arms the feet of our Lord, have rarely been
equalled, never surpassed; and the colour and
chiaroscuro are of the greatest importance in assist-
ing the deep impression this matchless work must
make on every human being that has a heart.

Then, again, as to the light and shadow of Rem-
brandt being incompatible with the dignity of
Raphael, I would say the same thing. Unquestion-
ably not, if used with Raphael's judgment. One of
the most remarkable characteristics of that great
man was the quickness with which he saw and made
himself master of every beauty and excellence in the
works of others, — of his contemporaries as well as of
the artists who preceded him; and to this it is in

THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS— BY RUBENS.

ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO 173

part, — we can scarcely say in how great a part, —
owing that he so far surpassed all other painters of
his time excepting Michael Angelo.

We often hear of the language and the grammar of
Art j and these words are frequently used where there
is no real correspondence between the qualities they
are put for and the words themselves. Sir Joshua
Reynolds, in his fourth Discourse, speaks of Paul
Veronese and Tintoret as possessing merely the lan-
guage of painters ; and adds, " it is but poor eloquence
which only shows that the orator can talk." Now let
us, for a moment, consider what are the qualities thus
compared to language, — that is, to a system of mere
arbitrary signs of things, which, having no resemblance
to the things themselves, vary in every nation under
Heaven. The powers of Art, thus compared to lan-
guage, present us with the most vivid images of all
that Nature addresses to our sight ; and these images
are given to us by Paul Veronese with a greater degree
of general truth than by any other painter on so large a
scale as that of his principal works. He unites ex-
quisite harmony and purity with the greatest brilliance
and force of colour, and the most unaffected system
of light and shade. He has elegance, grace, dignity,
and in some of his compositions a grandeur of style
not unworthy of Michael Angelo; while Tintoret,
possessing many of the highest excellences of colour,
appeals irresistibly to our imagination by the power
of his chiaroscuro.

It is not unfair to rate the qualities of Art by the
difficulty of their attainment, and the rarity with which
we find them in any tolerable degree of perfection. A

174 ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO

poet may in a word or two convey an idea of the com-
plexion of a beautiful woman, and those words often
very vaguely used. In the hands of Shakspeare,
"Nature's pure red and white" are sufficient; but
the painter, to do this, must engage in actual rivalry
with Nature herself, — a contest in which a distant
approach to her is allowed to constitute success. And
even such success, in the colour of flesh, has not,
perhaps, been perfectly attained by twenty artists with
whose works we are acquainted — Paul Veronese being
one.

Some critics have gone farther than Reynolds, and,
in a sweeping way, denounced all the varied excel-
lences of the Dutch and Flemish schools as the lan-
guage, only, of Art. Writers who have no practical
knowledge of Painting, may thus condemn what they
do not understand ; but should any artist be disposed
to listen to them, I would advise him to try to paint the
commonest object as the best Dutch painters would
have painted it, and I am much mistaken if he will
not soon acknowledge their transcendent excellence.

But I must again dissent from Sir Joshua when I
find him considering colour as a merely sensual ele-
ment of Art. It is certainly no more so, in the com-
mon and gross meaning of the word, than form, or
light and shade. All these may be equally used to
render subjects that appeal to our animal propensities
attractive, and Sculpture may be, and often is, as
sensual as Painting ever can be.

But colour, it is said, is sensual as addressing itself
to the sense of sight only, and not to the mind. This,
however, like the first objection, applies no more to

ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO 175

colour exclusively than to any other quality of Art.
Beauty of form or truth of light and shadow address
themselves as much to the eye, and no more to the
mind than colour, unless they express a sentiment, —
and colour may appeal to the mind as powerfully as
either, in the expressions of gaiety, of sadness, or of
solemnity. When we hear, as we often do, this peculiar
distinction of Painting called a merely ornamental
quality, we must remember that every part of the Art
is ornamental, — and if colour be more so in some
schools than in others, it is only because it is truer, in
those schools, to Nature. We must not confound the
materials the Venetian painters introduced into their
pictures with the media of their Art ; — the effects of
their rich velvets, satins, brocades, etc., with those
beauties of Nature, her brightness, splendour, and
harmony, which they first gave in perfection, and which
might as well adorn the poorest and coarsest materials
as the richest. It is not that Paul Veronese is gayer
in colour than Raphael, — but he is truer, and seems
completely to have attained that which Raphael aimed
at in nearly all his subjects, namely, the broad light of
tranquil mid-day. It is curious that, when Paul Vero-
nese visited Rome, he studied the frescoes of the
Vatican for their colour ; and seems to have derived a
fondness for shot or changeable draperies very much
from Raphael.

The most solemn, the most mournful tones, and
tones suited to the most sublime subjects, may be found
in the works of Titian, of Tintoret, and even of Paul
Veronese, as well as colour the most magnificent ; but
the distinguishing excellence of the Venetian and of

176 ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO

the Dutch and Flemish schools is that, whatever be
the choice of colours, — whether the tints be brilliant,
rich, or negative, — whether the effects be light or
dark, — the true tone of Nature is spread over the
whole.

I can never, therefore, think that Venetian or Dutch
colour can do otherwise than exalt the highest subjects ;
and it seems to me a most injurious error for painters
to consider colour a thing that may be either neglected
as a minor excellence or deliberately rejected as incon-
sistent with other qualities. Such may be a conveni-
ent mode of thinking, but I am convinced it never
was the way in which any really great painter ever
thought or felt ; and it is curious to see, in the writ-
ings of Reynolds, his natural love of colour breaking
out in detached passages, and confuting his own
theory of the incompatibility of the excellences of the
Venetian or Dutch with those of the Roman schools.
He admits in one place that the colour of Titian
might assimilate with the grandest subjects, — and in
another he says, "Jan Steen had a fine manly style
of painting that might become even the design of
Raphael."

I trust that, in the foregoing remarks, I shall not
be thought to undervalue the authority of Sir Joshua
Reynolds as a general writer on Art, any more than I
can be supposed indifferent to his transcendent excel-
lence as a painter, or to the benefits he has conferred,
far beyond any other man, on the school of which he
was the founder. Indeed, it is because he justly ranks
amongst the highest authorities in criticism that I have
thought it necessary to point out what appears to me

ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO 177

an injurious tendency in one part of his writings ; and
I would accompany what I have said by remarking,
that all theories, how great soever the names that
sanction them, if formed solely on the practice of
particular schools, should be carefully examined
before they are implicitly relied on.

In every country in the world, in which anything
like Art has appeared, a taste for colour seems to
have been one of its earliest developments. We see
it in thevpictures of the Egyptians, and in the decora-
tions of their mummy-cases, and even the American
Indians often display happy contrasts in the colours
with which their manufactures are adorned. In the
paintings of the Chinese, the decorations of their
porcelain, the patterns of their silks, and the ornaments
of their furniture, we find an exceeding refinement of
taste in the selection and arrangement of colours ; —
the most vivid tints are harmonised by contrast with
the most delicate, and an admirable balance is pre-
served between positive and negative hues. The
same is true, though in a less degree, of the Persians,
and other so-called semi-barbarous people ; and it is
very remarkable that we never see in the pictures and
manufactures of these semi-barbarians those glaringly
vulgar combinations of colour that so frequently occur
in the manufactures and Art of the most civilised
nations of the present day.

In the purchase of a carpet, for instance, with how
much of the vulgar finery of colour the eye is wearied
before it can find anything equal to the beauty of
a Persian pattern ; and how far more agreeable is the
effect of the Chinese to the Sevres porcelain, though

N

178 ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO

the pictures on the former leave out light and shadow
and set perspective utterly at defiance, while those on
the latter profess to be complete works of Art.

This was strikingly exemplified in the great Exhi-
bition of 185 1. In the apartment containing the
French tapestries, there were no combinations of
colour among them that were not tawdry, excepting
in those from Beauvais, which w^ere exact copies of
Persian carpets ; and though the porcelain and other
manufactures of China were very scantily represented,
yet the superiority of the arrangements of their colour
to the greater portion of such displays in the European
departments was very remarkable.

At the revival of Painting, the ItaHan, Flemish, and
German schools all began with that feeling for colour
common to the infancy of the Art among every other
people. . All the advantages derived from contrast,
balance, and purity of tints, appear previously to the
invention of oil-painting, and before the chiaroscuro
of Nature w^as perceived. Among the earliest speci-
mens of the union of chiaroscuro with colour, are the
works of the Van Eycks. Our National Gallery for-
tunately possesses two pictures of the highest excel-
lence by John Van Eyck, remarkable for a deep and
solemn splendour of tone not surpassed, and indeed
not very often equalled, by later painters. But that
the high estimation in which Mediaeval Art is held
has, in the present age, led to little else than mere
mimicry of its most superficial characteristics, is
evident to me from the entire want of perception of
the beauty of its colour in all attempts towards its
revival. Gilded backgrounds and halos, a hard pre-

ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO 179

cision of line, and a flatness of surface, from which
all the gradations of Nature are carefully excluded,
are given ; but if true imitation should ever take place
of this copying of the mere husk of the primitive
styles, these things will be omitted, and the harmony,
power, and brightness, which, with few exceptions,
distinguish their colour, will be felt.

In estimating the differences between good and
bad colourists, we often, I believe, attribute too much
to organisation and sensibility. We say such a one
has a fine eye, and another has no eye for colour.
But how are we to account for the fact that entire
schools and ages have excelled in colour, while to
every individual in other schools and ages a percep-
tion of its beauty seems to have been denied ? The
German, Dutch, and Flemish schools, for example,
have had more than one period in which all their
painters coloured well ; but for a century or more,
dating from the present time back — though in these
schools there have been many artists of great ability
— there has not existed a single excellent colourist.
It cannot be that Nature gives to men faculties in one
age that she entirely denies them in another, but it
must be that men cultivate faculties in one age that
at other times they suffer to lie dormant, or in the
cultivation of which they are hindered by accidental
causes.

The critics of the last century attributed every
excellence to Raphael ; but no one would now place
him on a par with the greatest of the Venetians as a
colourist; and, indeed, I have heard it said, com-
paring him with Rembrandt, that "the Art of Faint-

i8o ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO

ing\^2iS unknown to Raphael;" — and this by one of
his great admirers.

Yet I see no reason to suppose he was less happily
organised to excel in colour than Rembrandt or Titian.
The Blenheim picture, an early work, is quite Vene-
tian in tone and harmony, and there are some early
pictures by his hand in the Louvre, the landscape
backgrounds to which have the amenity of Claude.
But after his emancipation from the school of Peru-
gino (a school of colour), Raphael devoted himself
much to the study of the antique ; and it is certain
that the study of form, from stone or plaster, sus-
pends for the time all improvement of the eye in
colour, and, if too long continued, destroys its sensi-
bility to hues and tones entirely, and this is strikingly
exemplified in the French schools of David and his
contemporaries. Now, though Raphael studied the
antique with that judgment that rarely deserted him,
though he studied it rather in its spirit than its letter,
and used it as a guide to, and not as a substitute
for. Nature, yet the time spent in attention to it was
so much withdrawn from the study of colour, and the
substitution of classical draperies for the dresses of
his time so much more. It was also his custom to
make chalk-drawings from Nature for heads, hands,
etc., of his figures, and from these he seems to have
painted without again consulting the model. The
studies of the Venetians, as Reynolds has remarked,
were chiefly made with colours, and so, I apprehend,
were those of the German, the Dutch, and Flemish
schools. In the British Museum are some sketches
of landscape from Nature by Albert Durer, in colours

ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO i8i

only. From the time of Raphael to our own, it is
indisputable that those painters who have paid most
attention to the study of the antique, have, with the
exception only of Nicolo Poussin, always been the least
excellent in colour ; while the greatest colourists of
all schools have rarely had any acquaintance with
ancient sculpture. In our own, for instance, neither
Hogarth, Reynolds, nor Gainsborough, ever drew or
painted except from Nature.

Life is much too short for a mode of study which
I hope is less practised now than it was a few years
ago by many young painters. I mean, devoting two
or three years to drawing from the antique, and as
many to the life, before they begin to paint. Stu-
dents were often seen in the Academy and other
schools, twenty years of age and more, who had
never had a palette in their hands, and who had
never given a thought to one of the most captivating
parts of the Art by which they were to live. Raphael
was probably not twenty when he produced that
precious little gem in our National Collection, the
"Sleeping Knight." He began to paint under the
direction of his father before he entered the school of
Perugino ; and I must here remark, that whenever I
allude to the inferiority of his colour, I mean inferior-
ity only when compared with such painters as Titian ;
for I believe there are few, perhaps not one, of the
works of his own hand in which the standard of
colour is not much above that tolerated in the pre-
sent day, as well among ourselves as on the Conti-
nent ; and I think the Cartoons alone will justify me
in saying so much.

1 82 ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO

Nicolo Poussin began, also, with painting, under
Quintin Varin, and received instructions from Ferdi-
nand Elle, a Flemish portrait-painter, before he com-
menced the study of the antique; and I believe it
will be found that no painter has ever become a
tolerable colourist who did not begin with painting,
or, at any rate, who did not carry on the study of
colour at the same time with the study of form.
Michael Angelo painted before he took up the chisel.
His first picture represented Saint Anthony beaten by
devils. It was a copy from an engraving, but we are
told " as there were many strange forms and monsters
m it, he coloured no part without referring to some
natural object. He went to the fish-market to ob-
serve the forms and colours of the fins and eyes of
fish ; and whatever in Nature constituted a part of its
composition, he studied from its source,^^ After this, it
appears, he practised painting in the school of Ghir-
landajo, before he paid any, or at least much, atten-
tion to sculpture.

It is true the Royal Academy requires a certain
proficiency in drawing from the Antique before it
admits the student to the study of the living model.
Yet as there are many opportunities, during the
vacations, and while the Exhibition is open, of paint-
ing from Nature, I would strongly recommend such
an employment of these intervals — and particularly
the practice of portraiture, which has always been, in
a great degree, the foundation of the Art of the best
historical painters. "Were I to give an opinion,"
says Opie, " on the prevailing practice of academies,
I should say, not that too much attention has been

ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO 183

bestowed on drawing, but that certainly too little has
been paid to other branches of the Art. A man who
has attained a considerable proficiency in one part
will not like to become a child in another ; he will
rather pretend to despise and neglect, than be thought
incapable, or take the pains necessary to conquer it ;
and therefore it is, that though the student must
necessarily commence with drawing, he should also
very soon begin to attempt chiaroscuro, colouring,
and composition, and thus carry on the whole together
if he wishes to become a competent artist." — Now
portraiture embraces all these.

With respect to the Life School and the study from
Nature in general, it is a very common mistake to
suppose that attention to colour necessarily precludes
attention to drawing. " A painter," as Reynolds tells
us, " may as well learn to draw with a hair pencil as
with chalk ; " and if it be the more difficult instrument
of the two, there is the more reason for an early
acquirement of the command of it. Sir Joshua's own
practice affords the best commentary on the value of
his advice; for from the early use of the brush he
acquired a power of drawing with it of the most
enviable ease and taste. His defects in form arose
from his ignorance of anatomical structure ; but no
painter had ever a truer eye for the shapes of the
objects before him, or a hand more ready and obedient
in transferring those shapes to canvas, with the
greatest accuracy and taste. His heads are always
inimitably drawn in every view, and the forms of the
features, though marked with great firmness and pre-
cision, never seem so bounded by an outline, as we

1 84 ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO

see them in the works of many other painters. The
form is given in perfection, while the outUne here and
there eludes us as it does in Nature. His true feel-
ing for light and shade, also, is a proof of his accurate
perception of forms, for light and shade on a single
object are the only means to express that which is
outline in all other views besides the one given. Then
his animals, his horses, birds, dogs, etc., though minute
details are omitted, yet what life and character they
have, and which could not be there without accuracy
in their general forms. I consider, indeed, that
Reynolds was a draughtsman of the greatest taste and
general correctness, and whatever impression there
may be to the contrary, arises from his want of ana-
tomical knowledge, and of acquaintance with the
Antique. That he deeply felt these deficiencies is
certain; for he lamented them with equal candour
and earnestness : and his unfeignedly great admiration
of Michael Angelo shows that he fully appreciated
the value of the acquirements which he did not
possess.

It is a fatal error to believe that Colour is a matter
of more easy acquirement than Form ; I conceive it
to be far more difficult. Form may be measured;
its anatomical structure may be investigated, its lines
are not changed as tints perpetually are by the shift-
ing light of day or the accidents of reflexes. If the
beauties of form are subtle, those of colour are eva-
nescent ; and combined with chiaroscuro, from which,
in Nature, they are inseparable, they become the last
refinements of the Art, as it addresses itself to the
eye.

ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO 185

It must be remembered that, at the present day,
there are greater obstacles in the way of our becoming
colourists than existed in the infancy of Painting.
The discovery of chiaroscuro has much increased the
difficulties of colouring ; and unfortunately, ever since
the time of Raphael, indolence in a study so difficult
has been able to shelter itself under the example of
him who was indolent in nothing that belonged to the
Art.

In regarding the colour of the primitive painters,
of all the schools, our admiration must be confined to
the brilliancy, transparency, and force of their tints,
and the agreeable contrasts of their masses. The
true colour of flesh was scarcely perceived till the
time of the Bellini, and in their school perfected, only
in the hands of Giorgione and Titian ; nor were all
the delicate varieties produced by aerial perspective
given, even by these great masters, in whose styles,
indeed, chiaroscuro did not so completely enter as a
ruling principle as it did in the styles of Correggio,
Rubens, Rembrandt, and their followers. But these
things having now become parts of the Art can never
again be estranged from it, because they are insepar-
able from Nature, and are no more to be neglected
in our studies than we are to neglect anatomy in the
study of form.

The chiaroscuro of a picture is not merely its light
and shade, but its light and dark, the light and dark
colours contributing very materially to it, whether
they are placed in the light portions of the composi-
tion or not. Colour and chiaroscuro, therefore, have
so entire a dependence on each other, that they can

1 86 ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO

never be treated separately. Even engraving, which
seems to give us chiaroscuro alone, suggests colour,
to the mind, throughout.

The vocabulary in use relating to light and shade
is utterly inadequate to convey that knowledge of its
phenomena that a painter requires. It comprises
merely the terms light, shade, reflection, half-light,
and half-shade. Now all lights, with the exception of
those belonging to objects self-luminous, as fire, the
sun, etc., are either reflections of light from the sur-
faces of bodies, or transmission of light through those
that are transparent or partially so ; the focus of
light on a globe is, therefore, as much a reflection as
that appearance on its shadowed side, which, in
ordinary language, is called the reflection ; and as to
the terms half-lights and half-shades, they but express,
if literally understood, single degrees among the end-
less gradations from light to dark.

It has been said that water receives no shadow;
but this is either equally true of all other bodies or not
true of water, which is undoubtedly subject to effects
that we can no otherwise describe than by the word
shadow. When, for instance, the sun is shining on
the sea, were it possible that the water could be as
smooth as a mirror, we should see his disc exactly
reflected, and once only, the surface of the water in
other places giving an inverted image of the sky : —
but as such perfect stillness never occurs, the light of
the sun is spread on the surface by innumerable
broken reflections from the waves, and refractions
through them, — the spaces between each of these
lights (as we call them) reflecting the sky, where again

ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO 187

the upper parts of the clouds reflect the sun, and
other portions the blue sky or the sea.

The blue of the sky is occasioned by still more
minute reflections and refractions of the sun from and
through particles of vapour more subtle than those
which compose the clouds, — and but for which, in
place of the azure, there would, probably, be a void
of utter darkness."^

Where clouds or other objects intercept the re-
flections of the sun from the waves, the reflection of
the sky remains, causing those patches of shadow
which, seen from a low point, stripe the sea with
long lines of blue. It is scarcely necessary to re-
mark that the shadows we see distinctly on the
surface of muddy water are projected on the mud
within the water, and not on the water itself; as on
the face of a looking-glass very faint shadows may
always be cast, but these are either on minute par-
ticles of dust, or some slight degree of vapour, or on
scratches invisible to the naked eye, from all of which
the cleanest and most highly-polished mirror is never
wholly free.

Lights and shadows, on all objects, are occasioned
by the laws I have endeavoured to explain ; and the
effects described on water are exactly those which
take place on a meadow, the light of the sun being
reflected from or transmitted through every blade of
grass, and, where intercepted, leaving the reflection of
the sky. And on a road, the light is spread by

1 For an account of the most probable cause of the blue
colour of the sky, see a paper by R. Clausius, in " Scientific
Memoirs," Part iv., published by Messrs. Taylor and Francis.

i88 ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO

reflections from every particle of sand, gravel, or
clay.

Again, if we look close at a polished ball of metal,
we find a picture of every surrounding object ; and
this at a distance forms that appearance of light and
shade that gives it rotundity to the eye.^ Let the
ball be dimmed or roughened, and the same general
appearance of light and dark is left — equally, though
not so palpably, caused by reflection ; the forms and
colours of the objects pictured on the ball being more
or less blended as the surface is more or less dimmed.
Indeed, all dull surfaces would be found, if sufficiently
magnified, to be composed of inequalities which
spread the light exactly as the waves of the sea do —
and ground glass would be a true representative of
roughened water.

Of what consequence, it may be said, is it that the
artist should know this if he copy faithfully what he
sees? To which I would reply, that it is of the
greatest consequence if it enables him to see better
what he copies. All good colourists have recognised
the results I have spoken of, in Nature, whether or

1 Professor Wheatstone has made known as far, perhaps, as
it can be known, another, and indeed the principal, cause of the
projection and relief of objects, excepting in extreme distances,
by his admirable invention of the Stereoscope. Till his discovery-
naturalists were puzzled to account for a single image resulting
from double vision, and Gall and Spurzheim endeavoured to
explain it by the supposition that one eye only was active at a
time, the other only admitting light, and that Nature had given
us two merely to provide against the accidental loss of one.

The invention of the Stereoscope throws much light also on
the subject considered in the first section of this volume.

ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO 189

not they investigated the principles that produce
them, and the purity and evanescence of their colour-
ing has been in proportion to their perception of
these results. Paul Veronese saw Nature, thus, with
a truer eye than Rubens, and a perfect perception of
the influence of reflections constitutes that extraor-
dinary charm in the works of De Hooge, which we
scarcely find elsewhere on canvas in equal perfec-
tion. An investigation of these principles will protect
the young artist from the danger of many unfounded
aphorisms that he is likely to hear from his elders,
and meet with in books, as that shadow is colourless,
— that lights should be warm and shadows cool, or
shadows warm and lights cool; for a knowledge of
these laws will explain, what his eye will soon per-
ceive, that the tones both of lights and shades are
infinitely varied according to circumstances; — and
that as perspective alters every form to the eye, so
reflections change more or less every colour — har-
monising the crude and giving variety to the mono-
tonous ; and that shadow, as far as regards Painting,
can never be colourless, for it is never solely the
result of the absence of light, excepting in situations
with which the painter can have nothing to do, as
the interior of a cave, to which every opening is
closed.

As in Nature, the liquid and the transparent are
agreeable to the eye, while the dry, the dusty, the
smoky, and the parched, are unpleasant, so all great
colourists have aimed at expressing the first -named
quaUties and avoiding the last ; and as, by reflections,
a degree of evanescence or apparent transparency is

I90 ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO

given to opaque bodies, the perception of this is a
reason for the preference of a lucid mode of painting
even things that in Nature are not transparent ; and
if by Rubens, Gainsborough, and other great artists,
the use of glazing colours has been too much adopted,
yet it is a fault on the right side, for though it may
verge on mannerism, yet a transparent mode of
colouring will always be far more delightful than an
opaque one.

In passing through the streets, our eyes are at-
tracted by the splendid tints of the coloured liquids
in the shop windows of the apothecaries. To a care-
Jess observer, each bottle seems to contain one colour
only, and that the most brilliant of its kind ; but, on
examination, we find that every mass of colour is
made up of a great variety of tints caused by reflec-
tion and refraction, and that these are perpetually
changing with the change of passing objects ; now, in
these varieties lies the secret of the delight given to
the eye. What is true of these bottles is true of
every object, in a greater or less degree, for every
object is capable in a greater or less degree of re-
ceiving reflections, and the appearances of all things
are, therefore, in some sort, modified by surrounding
objects. When Reynolds painted his Dido on the
Funeral Pile,'' he put together billets of wood,
covered them in part with the rich objects he has
introduced into the picture, and placed his model on
it in the attitude and dress of the expiring queen.
This arose from no want of imagination, nor with the
intention of imitating all the minute details of the
things he put together ; but because he knew that a

ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO 191

degree of general truth, and of the harmony of light
and shade and colour, might thus be best obtained,
and accidental beauties of combination suggested
which might not otherwise occur to him. His own
remarks on a similar practice by Gainsborough are
excellent; — and should such contrivances appear to
consume time unnecessarily, I can only say that far
more time is often lost in endeavouring to guess at
effects, which such contrivances show us at once.
Wilkie, in his earlier practice, often made small
models of the rooms that formed the scenes of his
pictures, with the proper doors and windows, and
placed the general forms of his groups and furniture
within them — and he had no reason afterwards to
regret this as any waste of time.

When the principles I have endeavoured to explain
are understood, it will be seen at once how it is that
Nature, though some of her combinations are more
beautiful than others, at no time offends us by those
discords we find in badly-coloured pictures, nor does
she ever allow that equal colour over any object
whatever, by which painters, who are not close ob-
servers of all her delicate varieties, give a disagreeable
painted look to the surfaces of things. The golden
and silver tones of the great colourists are not inven-
tions of Art, but imitations, imperfect even in the
finest pictures, of Nature in her most genial moods.

It has always been felt that harmony is the result
of the breaking of positive colour; and those who
have not carefully examined how, and why, and in
what degree. Nature breaks her colours, have no other
resource left to avoid harshness than to dull every

192 ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO

tint. They do not observe that, while in some places
Nature breaks and subdues colour by reflections, in
others she doubles and often more than doubles their
brilliancy by the reflection and penetration of light.
It becomes, therefore, of great consequence that we
should imitate the appearance of every object with
reference to those that surrouriil it. Yet how contrary
is the practice of most painters, — for we perpetually
copy living models in our rooms, to which we add
landscape backgrounds.

Queen Elizabeth has been much misunderstood in
the saying attributed to her that she would be
"painted without shadow." If she even used the
expression, she meant, what she said at another time,
that she would be painted in an open garden light
— for she saw that there was a great difference be-
tween such effect and the effects in pictures. But as
the painters of her time could not paint objects as
seen in the open air, they painted her literally without
shadow. There are portraits by Gainsborough that
would perhaps have satisfied her, for some of them
really appear as if painted out of doors, and on some
of the small figures of De Hooge the effects of open
daylight are shown in perfection.

One of the first things a young painter is told is,
that whatever colour he introduces into his picture
must not be kept single, but repeated or echoed, with
some difference either in its quantity or strength, in
another part or parts of his composition; and the
laws of Nature show that we must do so, because it
is in this way that she herself paints, for these laws
always detach a portion of tint from every object, to

ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO 193

place it somewhere else ; though this is often nearly
imperceptible.

In the general arrangement of colours, though
Nature leaves us a wide range of choice, yet even
here she has laws that we may not break with im-
punity. Mr. West's theory of arrangement, according
to the order in which the primitive and secondary
colours take their places in the rainbow, would con-
fine the combinations of effect far too much. But
the rainbow furnishes, I conceive, a satisfactory
elucidation of the soundness of the advice of Rey-
nolds, that the warm colours — red, orange, and
yellow — should be placed in the lights, from which
the cold colours, as blue and green, should either
be excluded or admitted only in small proportions.
Every eye sensible to harmony must feel that un-
broken blue is always unpleasant in the high lights
of a picture. Green may be made more agreeable^
because it is nearer the light of the rainbow than
blue. Gainsborough, it is said, painted his portrait
of a boy in a pale blue dress, now in the gallery of
the Marquis of Westminster, by way of refuting the
objection Sir Joshua made to light blue as a large
mass. But I agree with the opinion of Sir Thomas
Lawrence, that in this picture the difficulty is rather
"ably combated than vanquished." Indeed, it is not
even fairly combated, for Gainsborough has so mel-
lowed and broken the blue with other tints, that it is
no longer that pure bleak colour Sir Joshua meant \
and, after all, though the picture is a very fine one, it
cannot be doubted that a warmer tint for the dress
would have made it still more agreeable to the eye.

o

194 ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO

In the most genial aspects of Nature, the blue of the
sky always serves as a half-tint to white or golden
clouds ; and when it is made to tell as a light, by
showing itself through the openings of dark clouds,
the effect is chilling. As a half-tint, blue, and indeed
any cool colour, may be used to great advantage in
very large quantities. A familiar proof of this may be
noticed in the beautiful appearance of a gilded vane
on a steeple, relieved on a deep blue sky. In Titian's
" Bacchus and Ariadne," there is a great proportion
of blue, but as it forms a ground of relief to the flesh,
and to the bright red, orange, and crimson draperies,
which make the lights, the effect is splendid, and the
picture is a fine specimen of that golden tone in
which Titian is scarcely ever rivalled. In Her
Majesty's collection is the finest work of De Hooge
with which I am acquainted. It represents an in-
terior, with a few figures drinking, smoking, and play-
ing at cards. Its largest masses are gray, but as this
serves for a foil to warm lights, the tone is delicious,
and is exactly that of the finest summer weather. In
the lights, there is a predominance of the most refined
red and yellow, and though there is one large mass of
blue drapery, yet it is of the deepest dye. There is
no sunshine in this picture, but something even more
beautiful, the reflection of sunshine on an open door,
from some object outside, but not seen. In the
works of Paul Veronese, we find very large propor-
tions of gray and of blue, but always as half-tints. In
his ''Marriage at Cana" there are no single masses
of colour so large as the blue of the sky and the gray
of the architecture; but on the blue are brilliant

ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO 195

white clouds, and the gray of the more distant parts
of the architecture serves to give richness to the
warmly-coloured marble of the near pillars. Rubens
equally understood the value of gray in giving effect
by contrast to all other colours ; but with Rubens
the gray is often of a leaden or slaty tone, while with
Paul Veronese it is always silvery. In the " Marriage
at Cana,'' a concert of music occupies the centre, and
the picture itself is a concert of exquisite harmony to
the eye."'-

It is a distinguishing excellence of Paul Veronese
that he never exaggerates the principles of Nature to
produce an effect. There is no union of midnight
shadows with the light of day ever to be found in
his works, and which we do find often in Tintoret,
the Bassans, Caravaggio, Guercino, and in many other
great masters. This is the boldest fiction of chiaro-
scuro, but it is generally managed by the painters I
have mentioned with such address that it silences
criticism and forces us to admire, whether we can ap-
prove or not. All that can be said in its defence is,
that the elements of such a combination are from
Nature, though united as Nature does not unite them.
Conventionalities like this must be forgiven to genius ;
but I do not think they are to be recommended to
imitation ; and in saying so I have no fear of repress-
ing the daring of genius ; for genius, such as the men
I have mentioned possessed, will always have its own
way. Great ability may, however, exist short of

^ A very large engraving of this picture has lately appeared,
which fails in giving its effect, from the v\^ant of depth in the
translation of the blue portion of the sky.

196 ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO

theirs; and I would gladly repress all who possess
it from attempting things which the success even of
greater painters cannot entirely sanction. And there
is much need of this caution, because it is far more
easy to imitate exaggeration of effect than to make
simple truth so impressive as it has been made by
Paul Veronese, by Claude, and by the best painters
of the Dutch and Flemish schools, including Rem-
brandt, when he pleases to be included.

A painter should not encourage a dislike to any
colour whatever ; for there is none that will not look
beautiful, in some combination with others, either in
Nature or in Art, just as there is no line or form
that does not become a line or form of beauty in
some situations.

In the difficulty we find in giving tone and harmony
to our works, we are apt to take refuge in the belief
that time will do for them that which we cannot do
ourselves. But we may just as well trust it to time
to improve our drawing or composition as our colour-
ing. Occasionally the crudeness of inharmonious
colours may be mellowed by age, but age can only
make dull painting duller : and though, with the help
of varnishes and the glazings to which the unprincipled
among picture-dealers often have recourse, a brown
or yellow hue may be given, yet tone^ the most subtle
refinement of colour, never yet belonged to any
picture unless imparted to it by the hand of the
painter himself; and there cannot be the smallest
doubt that every finely-coloured picture was always
seen to the greatest advantage as it came fresh from
the hands of the master. The reasoning of Hogarth

ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO 197

on this subject is conclusive: — "When colours," he
remarks, " change at all, it must be somewhat in the
manner following, — for as they are made, some of
metal, some of earth, some of stone, and others of
more perishable materials, time cannot operate on
them otherwise than as by daily experience we find
it doth, which is, that one changes darker, another
lighter, one quite to a different colour, whilst another,
as ultramarine, will keep its natural brightness even
,in the fire. Therefore, how is it possible that such
different materials, ever variously changing (visibly
after a certain time), should accidentally coincide with
the artist's intention, and bring about the greater har-
mony of the piece, when it is manifestly contrary to
their nature? for do we not see in most collections
that much time disunites, untones, blackens, and by
degrees destroys even the best preserved pictures ?

Sir Joshua Reynolds recommended the tone of
Ludovico Caracci's best works as the most suited to
the graver and more dignified subjects of history, and
Fuseli's eloquent description of its " veiled splendour "
presents it to the mind in the most captivating man-
ner. Though unacquainted with the works that so
delighted these great artists, I cannot doubt that they
deserve the commendations bestowed on them. Still,
I do not see why the tones of Titian and of other
painters, which may differ widely from the perfection
of Bolognese colour, may not sometimes as well suit
the most grave and dignified, and, indeed, the most
pathetic subjects. Disastrous events occur as often
under serene and brilliant skies, as in the shadows of
1 "Analysis of Beauty," chap. xiv.

198 ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO

twilight, and pathos may be heightened by the con-
trast. Sterne, in relating the most affecting of his
stories, says, " The sun looked bright to every eye in
the village but Le Fevre's and his afflicted son's/'

I have sometimes heard even bad colouring de-
fended, on the ground that the subject was a dismal
one ; but the more affecting the story, the more does
it require the compensation of every excellence of
Art to make it endurable. Even the mastery of
Rubens is scarcely sufficient to redeem some of his
subjects ; and I confess it does not excuse to me the
barbarity of his "Crucifixion," in the Museum at
Antwerp, in which the executioners are breaking the
legs of the thieves ; and whenever I have visited the
Louvre, I have turned with disgust from Gericault's
picture of the sufferers on the raft, a work which,
though displaying great ability, is as untrue in colour
as it is morbid in treatment, the repulsive throughout
being, as it were, put in italics. Wretched scenes
sometimes present themselves to our sight in real life,
in which we can neither do nor receive good, and
from which we gladly escape if we can ; and such
subjects conceived in such a manner are like these,
and no painter has a right to obtrude them on us.
The object of Art should be very different. I can
stand before the "Flood" of Nicolo Poussin, and
admire its pathos, because it is treated with taste, and
though it is dismal and terrible, it is not sickeni?ig.

Young painters sometimes choose subjects of suffer-
ing, and treat them in the most offensive manner, in
the hope that by making a strong impression they
will recommend themselves to notice. But they

ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO 199

should be told there is no certain way of making an
impression that will last, but by the sterling qualities
of Art. And they should acquire and rely on these,
and not on the excitement that may be produced
by revolting scenes, — an excitement that the most
callous mind will the most easily succeed in effecting.

In speaking of colour to British students, it would
be unpardonable to omit speaking of one, now num-
bered with the great colourists of the past, and who
to the end of his life sat working with the students of
the Academy.^ In the summer of 1849, the princi-
pal works of William Etty were exhibited, by permis-
sion of the Society of Arts, in the Adelphi; and,
excepting in the British Gallery, when the works of
Reynolds were displayed there in 18 13, I have not
seen walls covered with colour so equal in splendour,
in truth, and in refinement, as were, on that occasion,
the four walls of the Great Room belonging to the
Society; and the works there collected afforded
abundant proof of the fact that fine pictures gain
nothing by time, which had not indeed operated very
long on any of them; but where there was a per-
ceptible difference of age, the advantage was clearly
with the last painted.

I remember Etty, an indefatigable student at " dear
Somerset House," as he called it, before his name was

1 Before Etty was an Academician, he was asked if, in the
event of his election, he would discontinue his habits of study
in the Life School, and he answered to the effect that he would
not, and that if the members of the Academy considered such
habits improper in an Academician, he would rather remain a
student than become one.

200 ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO

known to the public, and when he was looked on by
his companions as a worthy plodding person, but with
no chance of ever becoming a good painter ; and I
have no other recollection of the first pictures he
exhibited than as black and colourless attempts at
ideal subjects.

Yet there may have been, in these early works, a
feeling of chiaroscuro which I was then unable to
estimate ; and, indeed, I have no doubt that he knew
a great deal more of the Art than I did, or others
who, like myself, could see no promise in his first
attempts.

One morning, however, thirty-three years ago, he
"awoke famous." It was the morning after the
opening of the Academy Exhibition of 182 1, in
which his splendid composition of "Cleopatra on
the Cydnus " had, the day before, unveiled his genius
to the public. In the previous year he had gained
the admiration of the painters by his beautiful picture
of the "Coral Finders," after having exhibited two or
three pictures annually for nine years to no pur-
pose.

How often he had sent pictures to the Exhibitions
before any of them were received, I know not. His
own account of his early disappointments is deeply,
painfully interesting. "I got one, two, three, per-
haps half a dozen, pictures ready ; ordered smart gilt
frames, and boldly sent them, properly marked, and
with a list of prices. ... In due time I went to
inquire their fate. Samuel Strowger, the Royal
Academy porter, and only male model, brought forth
the book of fate. ' Four out, and two doubtful ! '

ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO 201

Here was a blow ! Well, still there is hope ! two,
no doubt, will get in. No, were returned, both at
the Royal Academy and the British Gallery, year
after year ! Can this be ? — am I awake ? — where are
all my dreams of success — the flattering tale of hope
— where ? Driven almost to madness, the sun shone
no sunshine to me; darkness visible enveloped me,
and Despair almost marked me for her own."

On comparing dates, it appears that he must have
been thirty-four years of age when the "Cleopatra"
made him known to the world; and he had been
devoted to the Art, in mind at least, from child-
hood.

The works of few painters, collected, would present
an appearance so equal in colour as did Etty's pic-
tures when they were seen together. Nothing is
more generally striking in such exhibitions than the
very different styles of the different periods of practice.
But in Etty, after his powers were fully developed,
there was little change ; certainly no change of prin-
ciple, for from that time he was right.

But it would be doing him great injustice to con-
fine our admiration to his colour. Many other high
qualities are to be found in his works ; though not
without an intermixture of alloy; such an intermix-
ture, indeed, that I could well imagine a cold-blooded
critic looking round the exhibition in the Adelphi,
and quoting the words addressed by Mitchell to
Thomson, —

Beauties and faults so thick lie scattered here,
Those I could praise, if these were not so near. "

202 ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO

And such a one would well deserve the indignant reply
of the poet : — , ^

** Why all not faults 1 injurious critic, why
Appears one beauty to thy blasting eye ? "

But Mr. Gilchrist, a critic of another order, in a
review of this exhibition, says, with great truth, " We
can scarcely encounter the slightest performance of
Etty's hand, on which is not plainly stamped the broad
character in deed or manner." And I will add

that even the little pictures of still life, of fruit and of
flowers, with which he occasionally amused himself,
are proofs of this, — dashed off, as they are, with a zest
so far above the painful trifling of such painters as Van
Huysem.

Though Etty had not studied landscape in its minute
details, he had a genuine feeling for its amenity.
No painter ever suggested more delightfully the glow
of summer noonday, and many of his landscape back-
grounds are as remarkable for their perfect finish, at a
distance, as for their boldness of execution, discoverable
on a near approach — " masterly without rudeness.''

His moonlit seas, his deep blue skies, and that
expanse of rippling water which separates the gilded
boat from the frame of his picture in the Vernon
Gallery, are things soon enumerated, but of the rarest
occurrence in Art, with such beauty and truth as he
gave to them, and are the natural offspring of such
a life f'.s he describes his own to have been.

Before he began to study the Art, he served a
seven years' apprenticeship in a printing-oflice, having
been bound at the " tender age of eleven and a half ! "

ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO 203

Alluding to this, he says : " My life has been, since
I was free from bondage and pursuing the retreating
phantom of Fame, like the boy running after the rain-
bow,— my life has been, I say (with the exception of
some dark thunderclouds of sorrow, disappointment,
and deprivation), one long summer day ; spent in exer-
tions to excel, struggles with difficulty, sometimes Her-
culean exertions, both of mind and body ; mixed with
poetic day-dreams and reveries by imaginary enchanted
streams. I have passed sweetly and pleasantly along,
— now chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy, and
regretting my inability to do greater and better things ;
but God is good, and I desire in all my thoughts to
give Him glory in the highest, that He has blessed me
and mine with a fair reputation and the solid com-
forts of life in a degree beyond my deserts ; and I now
retire from the arena with the best feelings of peace
and good-will to my brethren of the Art, for their
uniform kindness, consideration, and support, in my
long professional career."

To me, the most impressive of his pictures is the
last of the three from the story of Joan of Arc ; and
I would here dwell on it as illustrating what I have
said on the treatment of tragic subjects ; and though
this picture and its companions are inferior in com-
pletion to the magnificent series from the history of
Judith, yet they place Etty higher, as a master of sen-
timent, though perhaps only because the story is of
more interest. The subject of this one, the execution
of Joan, is thus described by the painter : " She had
called for a crucifix, a soldier tied two pieces of wood
together in the form, and gave it to her ; she clasped it

204 ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO

to her bosom as the emblem of her redemption ; in
the meanwhile, Father Avenel, a monk, having pro-
cured one, made his way through the crowd, and
endangered himself several times to administer con-
solation to her, till she, perceiving his danger, begged
of him at last to consult his own safety, and leave her
to her fate ! As the smoke and flames cleared away,
she was seen clasping the crucifix, and her voice was
heard calling on the name of Jesus ! Tradition says,
a white dove was seen flying towards Heaven."

I can call to mind no picture of such a subject ap-
proaching to it in pathos, and, at the same time, so
entirely free from all false sentiment. — In looking at it
I can think only of the heroine and her fate (so dis-
graceful to two great nations), for the mind is not
drawn from this by any studied elegance in her atti-
tude or in the dark drapery that invests her, as she
stands appealing to Heaven with a faith which does
not yet conquer her terrors of a frightful death. — The
careful manner in which the quaint old houses in the
background are painted gives a dreadful reality to the
scene, and instead of the usual commonplace accom-
paniment to such subjects, of a lurid sky, Etty has
shown the heavens clear as the soul which is about to
wing its way from a cruel world, — and, like a true
poet, he has availed himself of the reported incident
of the dove rising in snowy brightness.

Something of the mannerism, in forms and attitudes,
of the Lawrence and Westall schools, which in senti-
ment were the same, may be seen in Etty's Art.
That this should be the case, however, was the almost
inevitable result of his placing himself in early life

ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO 205

under Lawrence : — so difficult are the impressions
received in youth to be effaced, even where, as with
Etty, there is great originaHty and strength of mind.

He has told us, in his Autobiography, that though
he painted in the house of Sir Thomas, he received
little or no instruction from him. Still, the contem-
plation and copying the works of that eminent man
could not but in some degree affect his style, and
indeed the Art of Lawrence had so much of fascina-
tion in it as to maintain a widely-spread influence
over the rising talent of the day; and gradually to
undermine till it almost entirely superseded the taste
imparted by Reynolds and Gainsborough to English
portraiture.

If Etty acquired a tinge of something in the house
of Lawrence which he might better have been with-
out, it is greatly to his praise that he came from it a
colourist destined to rank with the very best that
have lived ; for the school of the great portrait-painter
was certainly not one of colour. But I believe his
first impressions of harmony were derived more from
Fuseli, who, even if his pictures did not prove his
sensibility to the refinements of colour, has sufficiently
shown it in his lectures, and in no sentence more
than in that in which he tells us he had always
"courted colour as a despairing lover courts a dis-
dainful mistress." A mistress, as I have before
noticed, much less disdainful than he imagined.

There is a question on which it may not appear to
be my province to enter ; but it is one which Etty's
peculiar treatment of and choice of subjects must
present to most minds ; — I mean the question of how

2o6 ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO

far his frequent preference of the nude may or may
not be defended. It is true that in entire nudity
there may be nothing objectionable, while figures
clothed to the chin, if but an eye be seen, may convey
the grossest meanings. But I scarcely remember a
female face by Etty in which the expression is im-
pure ; and if I wished for a personification of inno-
cence, I know no painter's works among which I
could more readily find very many instances that
would answer to it. I remember, years ago, borrow-
ing from him to copy, a head of a young girl, of such
angelic purity of expression, that I returned it after
having destroyed all the attempts I made to repeat it,
because, in all, I had failed to catch the beauty either
of the expression or of the colour.

In considering the question of the propriety or im-
propriety of nudity, I can call to mind no display of
it in the works of Raphael, of Stothard, or of Flax-
man, that seems to me objectionable. But this I
cannot say of the works of Titian, Correggio, Rubens,
and others of the great colourists, masters between
whom and Etty there was more in common.

He was aware of the imputations that were cast on
his character by those who knew him only in his
works. — " I have been accused," he writes, " of being
a shocking and immoral man." And in another part
of his Autobiography, so deeply interesting to all who
knew him, for all who did knew his entire sincerity,
he sayj, "As a worshipper of beauty, whether it be
seen in a weed, a flower, or in that most interesting
form of humanity, lovely woman, an intense admirer
of it, and its Almighty author, — if at any time I have

ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO 207

forgotten the boundary line that I ought not to have
passed, and tended to voluptuousness, I implore His
pardon. I have never wished to seduce others from
the path and practice of virtue, which alone leads to
happiness here and hereafter; and if in any of my
pictures an immoral sentiment has been aimed at, I
consent it should be burnt; but I never recollect
being actuated in Painting by any such sentiment."

The apology which he makes for his extraordinary
predilection for the nude, namely, that " he preferred
painting the glorious works of God to draperies, the
works of man," is based on the mistake of considering
artificial objects as less poetic than natural ones ; an
error which has been completely exposed by Lord
Byron in his controversy with Mr. Bowles.

Etty's Art was in the end substantially rewarded.
But I fear the extent to which he was patronised
must not be entirely considered as proceeding from a
pure love and true appreciation of what is excellent
in painting. It cannot be doubted that the display of
the female form, in very many instances, recommended
his pictures more powerfully than their admirable Art ;
while I entirely believe that he himself, thinking and
meaning no evil, was not aware of the manner in
which his works were regarded by grosser minds."^

1 Painters must not be unmindful that a display of nudity
exposes their works to alterations by unskilful hands. Un-
skilful, because the presumption that would alter the work of
another is rarely to be found in those who are capable of doing
it well. The grand lines of Michael Angelo's Last Judgment "
were disturbed while he was yet living, to satisfy the modesty
of the bigoted persecutor, Paul IV., who wished to destroy the

2o8 ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO

From my own knowledge, I am enabled to say of
Etty, that his conduct as an Academician was in-
variably marked by the most unremitting and disin-
terested zeal for the prosperity and honour of the
society of which he was so distinguished an orna-
ment. He considered, indeed, the welfare of the
Academy as identical with the general welfare of the
Arts of his country. Naturally shy, he never spoke
at our meetings without a great effort, yet never was
he silent on any occasion on which he thought he
could serve the institution. There was a simplicity
and sincerity in his manner that greatly attached his
friends ; and I never could discover in him the least
sign of jealousy or other unworthy feeling towards
any of his brother artists. I knew much of him in
the early part of his career ; and, destined as he was
to see many of his fellow-students, younger than him-
self, pass by him mto notice and patronage, while he
was still working in obscurity, no murmur escaped
him, no expression of envy towards those who, often
with far less of merit, wxre outstripping him in the
road to fame.

I have more than once alluded to the inferiority in
colour of Rubens to the greatest of the Venetian
painters ; and yet I am not sure that the impression
of such an inferiority may not be owing to the fact

entire work ; and the Graces in Rubens's Education of Mary de
Medici? " have been draped, to the great injury of the picture.

Such meddling cannot be too strongly reprobated, and I
must not let this opportunity pass without noticing that some
of Etty's beautiful studies from the life have been ruined by the
addition of backgrounds since his death.

ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO 209

that a very great portion of the works that pass for
his are his only in conception and composition, for
there never was so large a manufactory of Art as that
of which he was the head ; and if by such a system
as he established at Antwerp the world is a gainer in
the quantity of great works, it is a loser in their
quality,

I suspect that something of the same system may
account for the extreme difference in colour discover-
able in the works of Nicolo Poussin, which cannot
be attributed to the changes of time, or the obtrusion
of the dark grounds of some of them ; for his inferior
pictures are not only dull in tone, patchy in the
colour of the draperies, and dingy in the flesh, but
they are feeble and tame in execution, and the figures
often short and ill drawn, the faces having the look
of masks, from the hard marking of the flesh round
the eyes. Many of this class are in the Louvre, which,
had I met with them anywhere else, I should have
believed to be indifferent copies.

His subjects from classic fable, and his landscapes,
are, with but few exceptions, those in which he shows
himself a colourist; and, indeed, it is evident that
these, more than any others, are the subjects he loved.
In our National Gallery, the "Cephalus and Aurora,"
and the "Education of Bacchus," and the "Sleeping
Nymph," are the finest specimens of his colour; the
last, indeed, is the finest I ever saw. We look at
them all, however, through a coating of reddish-yellow
varnish, through which Poussin never saw his pictures,
and of which I shall again speak.

The just reproach of Fuseli, that "crudity and

2IO ON COLOUR AND CHIAROSCURO

patches frequently deform his effects," though it may
not be entirely owing to the employment by Poussin
of another hand to execute his designs, is, I believe,
mainly attributable to this, while the wide difference in
colour discoverable in the landscapes of Claude is the
result of what Constable was the first to notice, namely,
the decline of his powers with declining age. " We
are not always," he said, "buying a Claude when we
are buying a picture painted by him;" and the land-
scape bequeathed to the National Gallery by Mr.
Hollwell Carr, " David at the Cave of Adullam," is an
instance of the loss of his brightness of colour towards
the close of his life.

If painters, at an advanced age, often cease to be
themselves, so, in early youth, there is a time of their
practice before they begin to be themselves. I do not,
however, think that a picture, with the name of Gior-
gione, lately added to the National Gallery, can be a
specimen of the early practice of any painter. The
figure in armour, sprawling on his knees, is the best
thing in it ; but I can scarcely believe this figure, and
assuredly not the Madonna and Child, to be the work
of Giorgione, who had always a fine sense of grace
and dignity. Nor is the absence of these qualities
atoned for by anything that impresses me as religious
sentiment, nor by any remarkable excellence of the
colour, of which it can only be said that it is not in-
harmonious.

As in drawing, the general practice in schools is to
begin with copying statuary, so in painting the usual
practice is to commence with copying pictures. But
this, if continued too long, is apt to become a mere

ON COPYING PICTURES

211

employment of the hand and eye, with which the mind
has little to do. There is not, however, much need of
a caution on this point, as they who are likely to dis-
tinguish themselves by original works do not belong
to that class that continue year after year to multiply
misrepresentations of the old masters, or to avail them-
selves of the privileges of copying pictures in the
National and British Galleries, and in the Royal
Academy, for the purpose of selling their copies. He
who wishes to become a painter will not part with his
copies, but will keep them constantly in sight, covering
the walls of his rooms with them, and with the best
engravings he can procure from the best pictures,
instead of hanging up his own works, and he will daily
see in these some beauty unobserved before, and thus
gradually acquire principles not to be communicated
in any other way, as good manners are acquired by
living constantly in the best society.

The student who is destined to distinguish himself
will acquire the principles of his Art from all objects
that surround him. He will find even the spoons and
glasses on his table full of instruction in the exquisite
beauties resulting from the reflection and refraction
of light, the laws of which, as I have endeavoured
to show, are the laws of Nature's harmony. He will
see that silver is more beautiful than gold, and colour-

i less glass more beautiful than coloured, because
they reflect the hues of surrounding objects more

i vividly.

; I cannot but look on the late introduction of the
j gayest colours into the manufacture of glass as among
! the many symptoms of the decline of taste in orna-

212 ON COP YING PICTURES

mental manufactures, arising from that growing love
of vulgar finery that has led to so much of mistaken
and clumsy imitation of the Louis Quatorze and
mediaeval styles of furniture.-^ But, in saying this, I
must not be thought insensible to the beauty of the
old stained windows of our cathedrals, though in the
modern imitation of these I have rarely seen instances
of success.

But to return to the subject of copying. I have
often observed in the painting school of the Academy,
that the attention of students is too anxiously directed
to the discovery of the materials used in the picture
they are studying. It may be useful to ascertain these,
but it is seldom easy, and often not possible, and the
great object in copying should be to look for the prin-
ciples from which the beauties of the picture result,
independently of the mere pigments employed in it.
With respect to these, and the vehicles used by the
great painters of the Flemish school, we may learn far
more from Sir Charles Eastlake's " Materials for the
History of Oil Painting, ''^ than we can ever learn by
copying their pictures.

Assuming that this invaluable work is in the hands
of every painter, I will merely offer a few general

^ Every age of this country has been marked by a style in
furniture which, whether good or bad, had at least a distinct
character of some degree of originality, down to the present
century, which seems destined to leave behind it a confusion of
styles, which will be distinguished only from those they mimic
by the blunders that are unavoidable in all attempts at literal
imitation in Art, or even in manufactures.

2 Sir Charles has promised us a volume on the Italian
Schools.

ON VEHICLES

213

observations on the subject of vehicles, the result of
my own experience, now extending over a space of
more than forty years.

The "Venetian secret," as it is called, has little to
do with chemical secrets, for I am persuaded that
Titian would have coloured as finely as he did with
the materials used by any school, while the colours or
grounds of Titian would not have enabled David to
imitate flesh. "He," as Fuseli says, "who cannot
use the worst materials, will disgrace the best." It is
very important, however, that the causes that so often
lead to the premature decay of pictures should be
understood, for unfortunately some of the greatest
painters of the British school have been lamentably
careless in this matter. The intense desire of Reynolds
to obtain every possible charm of colour, tempted him
too often to use the most fugitive pigments, because
they were the most beautiful, and to heighten their
effects by ruinous mixtures of wax, varnishes, etc. ;
and in this he was followed by Turner, some of whose
pictures I have known to crack before the exhibition
was closed in which they first appeared.^ Many of
Wilkie's pictures have suffered from being varnished
too soon, or from the inordinate use of macgilp made
of drying oil and mastic varnish, and the use also of
asphaltum, a material which I believe never thoroughly
dries, but is apt to crack like pitch on a fence.

The simplest mode of painting is the most secure ;
and it is evident that by methods extremely simple
many of the great colourists have produced their

1 Turner often used water-colours over oil, and then again
oil-colours over water.

214

ON VEHICLES

finest works, and among these may be named Titian
himself. I have seen exquisitely-coloured pictures
by Jan Steen, as perfect in their surface and as free
from the slightest change as if they were painted but
yesterday, evidently from the use of virgin tints only,
tints not produced either by glazing or scumbling.
And the same simple method seems to have been the
general practice of Paul Veronese. Not that trans-
parent colours were excluded, but that a thin filmy
method of obtaining the tints was avoided.

All dryers are in some degree injurious, and I have
little doubt that, by working more leisurely than we
do, by not overloading our colours, or by proceeding
with more than one picture at a time, so as to allow
each sufiicient intervals of rest, dryers of every kind
may be dispensed with, from sugar of lead to drying
oil.

If, in the extreme beauty of his colour, the example
of Reynolds has been of inestimable value, yet with
respect to many of the means by which he wrought
— means not essential to his end — the precedents he
established have been injurious. His practice, at one
time, of beginning his faces in light and shadow
merely, and adding the colour by glazing, has not
only left among his works many beautiful wrecks of
beautiful faces, but has led to a very common practice
among students, of preparing their flesh for glazing,
and thus beginning with tints unlike the object in
Nature at which they are looking. This method is
injurious to the sensibility of the eye, and it is
assuredly best, from the very beginning, to endeavour
at exact imitation of the colour of the object before

ON FRESCO

215

us, a practice Reynolds himself adopted at a later
period of his life.

Some of our painters were not a little alarmed at
the introduction of fresco, lest it should bring with it
a neglect of the beauties of colour. But though in-
capable of the deep transparency of oil, it does not
preclude its lighter and gayer effects, and Etty's three
fresco sketches from " Comus/' now in the possession
of Mr. Wethered, are charming proofs of this.

When the decoration of the walls of the Houses of
Parliament was proposed, Mr. Haydon delivered an
admirable lecture at the Royal Institution, in which
he thus contrasts the effects of fresco and oil : — " The
power of fresco lies in light ; the power of oil in depth
and tone. Oil is luminous in shadow — fresco in light.
A mighty space of luminous depth and * darkness
visible ' gives a murky splendour to a hall or public
building. A mighty space of silvery breadth and
genial fleshiness, with lovely faces, and azure draperies,
and sunny clouds, and heroic forms, elevates the
spirits, and gives a gaiety and triumphant joy to
the mind. The less shadow in decoration the
better."

The specimens of fresco by Mr. Redgrave, Mr.
Cope, and Mr. Horsley, lately placed in the shade
and between windows at Hampton Court, show in a
striking manner how admirably it is adapted to situ-
ations in which oil-painting would be lost. The
quantity of light received and reflected by their
grounds of lime is really wonderful.

The subjects treated in this section are not uncon-
nected with the vexed question of picture-cleaning;

2i6 ON PICTURE-CLEANING

and I will conclude it, therefore, with some remarks
on this very important matter.

Pictures, like ourselves, are not only subject to the
inevitable decay of age, but to a variety of diseases
caused by heat, cold, damp, and foul air.^ Many,
and they, too, are among the most delicate and beau-
tiful, have, like Leonardo's "Last Supper," and a
large proportion of the works of Watteau, of Rey-
nolds, and of Turner, unsound constitutions given to
them by the authors of their existence, and are thus
subject to premature and rapid destruction. These
liabilities, and the many accidents to which they are
exposed, have made picture-restorers as important a
class in Art as physicians and surgeons in life ; and,
as might naturally be expected, there are many un-
skilful among them, and many ignorant quacks.
Still we cannot dispense with their aid, and nobody
can be acquainted long with Art, and not have noticed
many instances of the restoration of pictures, if not to
their entire original condition, yet infinitely nearer to
it than could be imagined possible. Within the last
year, the restorations effected by Mr. Bentley of many
of the pictures of Mr. Thomas Baring's collection,

1 To this last evil — one very injurious to pictures — the Na-
tional Collection will remain exposed as long as the indiscrimi-
nate admission of the public is continued, and by which the
rooms are often so crowded that nobody can see the pictures,
which, in the meantime, are suffering greatly from the dust
carried in, and the atmosphere that is generated. Why might
not an office, not far from the Gallery, be established, at which
tickets should only be given to those who can write their names ?
It may safely be affirmed that fine pictures can afford no instruc-
tion to those who cannot.

ON PICTURE-CLEANING

which seemed irreparably injured by fire, were truly
wonderful. Here I can speak feelingly. A picture
of my own was so changed by heat and smoke (in
some parts light colours turned to black), that
could do nothing towards its recovery short of re-
painting the whole; yet it was restored by Mr.
Bentley. Another remarkable instance of skill in
this art is the well-known reunion of the halves of one
of the very finest pictures of Cuyp, the sunset view of
Dort, belonging to Mr. Holford.-^ This was effected
by Mr. Brown, the difficulty being rendered very great
by the circumstance that the picture had been cut
through a portion consisting of bright sky and water.
Such are the triumphs of restoration, of which I could
mention other instances within my own knowledge,
effected by Mr. Seguier, who has been so often assailed
for having removed nothing but dirt from those
pictures in the National Gallery with the cleansing
of which he was entrusted. But then, on the other
hand, I could tell of injuries nearly amounting to
destruction, inflicted by ignorant pretenders to the
art. I remember some of the most beautiful works of
Sir Joshua Reynolds at the British Gallery in 1813,
almost as they came from his hand, which I have
since met with, rubbed down to the dead colour, and
then again, after a short interval, smeared over with

1 In this picture there is a beautiful gradation from warm to
cool colour in the sky ; and when divided, the warmer half was
called Evening," and the cooler Morning."

I have heard that the picture of the * * Ages of Human Life, "
in the Bridgewater collection, narrowly escaped being cut in
two when it was brought to England.

2 1 8 ON PICTURE- CLEANING

brown varnish, under the pretence of restoring the
tone.

The attacks that have been so unsparingly directed
against the cleaning of pictures in the National Gal-
lery, have been generally founded on the assumption
that the tone of a fine picture is always imparted to
it by a general glazing, and that, in the removal of
this, its most valuable quality is destroyed. But it
is so far from being true that the best colourists
finished their pictures with a general glaze, that I
believe the cases in which they have done so have
been exceptional. Reynolds sometimes, but not
always, did this ; and it appears, by his own account,
to have been the invariable practice of Mr. Haydon :
but I know it was not the practice of Turner, of
Etty, of Constable, or of Wilkie, and I feel confident
it was not of Paul Veronese, Rubens, Claude, the
Poussins, or Cannalletti.

Much has been said about what has been taken
fro77i the pictures in the National Gallery, but nothing
about what has been put on them. I do not believe
that anything injurious has been added to them since
the establishment of the Gallery, unless it may be oil
varnish, which has become more yellow ; but about
the beginning of the present century it was not un-
frequent for the possessors of old pictures to have
them to7ied^ as it w^as called. The noble landscape
by Rubens, then the property of Sir George Beau-
mont, was saturated with linseed oil to prevent its
scaling from its panel, and this was suffered to dry on
the surface. There is, therefore, under the deep
yellow coating that now covers it, a fresh and natural

ON PICTURE-CLEANING 219

picture, the picture Rubens left, and which the world
may never be permitted to see again. The "St.
Nicholas" of Paul Veronese has been happily re-
lieved from the brown glaze or oil bestowed on it
forty or fifty years ago ; but Sebastian Del Piombo's
"Raising of Lazarus,"-^ remains still under the
gradually - deepening obscurity it was consigned to
about the same time ; and so do the large landscape
by Salvator Rosa, the landscape called "Phocian,''
by Nicolo Poussin, and others, which, taking these as
guides, will easily be discovered as involved in the
same misfortune. Goldsmith, in the " Vicar of Wake-
field," tells us, what no doubt he himself had seen,
that a would-be connoisseur in an auction -room,
" after giving his opinion that the colouring of a pic-
ture was not mellow enough, very deliberately took a
brush with brown varnish that was accidentally lying
by, and rubbed it over the piece with great compo-
sure before the company, and then asked if he had
not improved the tints." I have myself seen a com-
mon workman in an auction-room smear a thick coat
of varnish over a fine picture, in the most hurried and
careless manner, to make it look well at the sale, —
and I am sorry to say that even respectable dealers
are apt to load with varnish, to an injurious degree,
pictures they are anxious to sell.

1 In the great room of the Louvre hangs a fine picture by
Sebastian, "The Meeting of Mary and EHzabeth," which re-
mains as the painter left it, and there cannot be a greater con-
trast in tone than it presents to the " Raising of Lazarus."

SECTION XIII

On the Colour of RaphaeV s Cartoons^ and their
Presenrntion

In the last section I briefly alluded to the colour
of Raphael's Cartoons, a thing, however, not to be
slightly passed over, as I believe they are the most
entire specimens of the work of his own hand, when
in the meridian of his powers, that exist. The very
fact of their being Cartoons, as I have before noticed,
seems conclusive ; and though the herons in the
'^Miraculous Draught of Fishes," were painted by
Giovanni d'Udine,^ and the pillars of the " Beautiful
Gate " by another assistant, I have no doubt that in
the faces, figures, and draperies; in all, indeed, ex-
cepting those subordinate parts which might as well
be trusted to others, we see the work of Raphael's own
fingers.

1 Fuseli objects to the introduction of the herons, but when
it is remembered that these birds were and are held sacred in
the East, being considered emblematic of piety, their presence is
certainly not out of place, and their tameness in approaching so
close to the figures is accounted for. One of them elevates its
head in the act of drinking, an action noticed by Bunyan in
domestic fowls as expressive of giving thanks to Heaven, and it
may not, perhaps, be an over-refinement to suppose that such a
thought occurred also to Raphael.

COLOUR OF RAPHAEL'S CARTOONS 221

If they have not the excellences of Paul Veronese,
still the colour of the Cartoons is clear, healthy, and
vigorous, and the value of gray in everywhere setting
off the positive colours, is as fully felt as in works
that may be referred to as models of colour. The
finest in effect appears to me to be the " Punishment
of Elymas," a picture that would not, when the limits
of distemper are considered, detract from a Venetian
reputation.

Among the changes in them by time or accident,
the loss of red from the mantle of the Saviour in the
"Miraculous Draught of Fishes" cannot admit a
doubt. The reflection of it in the water is red, and
we know that red and blue are colours very rarely de-
parted from in the drapery of the Saviour, excepting
at the transfiguration and after the resurrection. The
white, shaded with umber, of the mantle as it now ap-
pears, is evidently according to a method in which
many of the draperies have been prepared, and to
which colour has been added by a thin glaze or wash.
In the "Sacrifice at Lystra," the dress of the priestess
who kneels immediately behind the man holding the
bull, has been prepared in this manner, after which a
tint of green has been passed over it, which time or
accident has completely removed from the greater
portion of the umber and white, as the red is gone
from the drapery in the "Miraculous Draught." If
the experiment be tried, of making a coloured sketch
of this cartoon, substituting a red mantle for the
white one, it will be seen at once that a balance of
colour is given to the picture, which it now wants.

A probable difference between the choice of colours

222 COLOUR OF RAPHAEL'S CARTOONS,

by Raphael, and what it might have been by Paul
Veronese, were he capable of conceiving the Cartoons,
would perhaps have shown itself, not in more, but in
less of gaiety in the colours of the draperies. Raphael
has not, in any instance, made use of black, which no
Venetian painter would have omitted; and in com-
paring the colour of these great works with the
general treatment of similar subjects by Paul
Veronese, we must feel how unfounded is the supposi-
tion of Sir Joshua Reynolds, that Venetian colour is
inconsistent with Roman design.

It is said that when Tintoret was asked which were
the most beautiful colours, he replied "black and
white." Whether he meant to mark the importance
of light and shadow, or that black and white, though
in themselves not colours, give the greatest possible
value by contrast to every colour, it is certain that he,
like all the other great Venetians, availed himself of
black and white with consummate skill, as did the
later Dutch school, and this seems to me one point in
which the colour of these schools has an advantage
over that of Raphael; while another superior excel-
lence of the Venetians and the Dutch lies in the
taste with which they managed the infinite variety of
tints to which we can give no names.

There is a small picture by Paul Veronese at
Hampton Court, a Saint Catherine kneeling at an
altar, with other figures, in which the hues are so
negativ e that no tint can be called red, blue, yellow,
or green. Yet it is a beautiful harmony, and as far
removed from monotony as from dulness. By com-
paring this with the Cartoons, the student will see, in

AND THEIR PRESERVATION

223

respect to choice of colour, where Raphael and Paul
Veronese differ, — while in another St. Catherine, by
the latter (a larger picture), No. 95, he will see where
their choice is alike.

I cannot but think it a misfortune that the Royal
Academy is in possession of Thornhiirs poor copies
of the Cartoons; a misfortune that such misrepresenta-
tions of so great a master should be constantly
before our students. But it rests with themselves to
turn it to some account ; for if they will make frequent
visits to Hampton Court, and carry with them the
recollection of the poverty of Thornhill, they will more
highly estimate the riches of Raphael.

There is a great difference, not in degree, but in
kind, between the natural, fresh, daylight of the Car-
toons, and the heavy conventional colour of some of
the large and late works of Raphael in the Louvre,
such as the " Holy Family," in which the child is
springing into his mother's arms from a cradle, and
the "St. Michael piercing Satan." My belief is, that
these pictures were never touched by him, and that
he only furnished the Cartoons, probably in chalk,
and without colour. If I recollect aright, they were
painted for Francis I., who was perhaps content to
have copies of designs of Raphael, by his pupib, as it
must have been well known how much they painted
for their master in the Vatican. There is a repetition
of the "St. Michael" in England (in the collection of
Mr. Hope), which appears to me in all respects
equal to the Louvre picture, and has every appear-
ance of being by the same hand; and it is not
conceivable that Raphael, overburthened as he was

224 COLOUR OF RAPHAEL'S CARTOONS,

with employment from the Pope, could find time to
make an exact copy of a large picture of his own.

ST. MICHAEL — BY RAPHAEL.

The history of the Cartoons is unparalleled in the
history of Art. Designed merely as patterns for the
ornamental furniture of a chapel,"^ — these, I will not
say coarsely painted (for Raphael could paint nothing
coarsely), but slightly painted sheets of paper, — in a

^ The circumstance of many parts being woven with gold
and silver, shows how little the tapestries were considered as
anything else than ornament.

AND THEIR PRESERVATION 225

material precluding many of the most refined charms
of Art, as well as many of the most beautiful truths
of Nature, and with faults easily discoverable by
the most uneducated eye,— rapidly planned and as
rapidly executed, — these sheets of paper disprove, for
once, a saying, true in most cases, that "pictures
painted in a hurry may be seen in a hurry." It is
not that they prove the insignificance of the things
they want, but that they display the vast powers
of him who, with means so insufficient, could be-
queath to the world works unequalled in sublimity,
excepting by others of his own hand, and by the hand
of his great and only rival.

According to the account given of them in Felix
Summerly's "Guide to Hampton Court," the series
of the Cartoons consisted of eleven. The death of
the Pope before the tapestries were finished or paid
for, prevented their return to Rome, and when the
weavers had done with them they were thrown aside
as waste paper, and " lay in a cellar, neglected, for a
hundred years." The seven that escaped destruction
were discovered in the time of Rubens, and, by his
recommendation, purchased by Charles I., who
seemed, however, only to consider them in the light
of patterns for tapestry, of which he established a
manufactory at Mortlake. Some of the hangings,
probably woven there, are at Petworth, and one,
" Elymas the Sorcerer," belongs to Hampton Court.
But the Cartoons still remained in the condition
in which they came to England, that is, cut in slips
for the convenience of the weavers, when, at the
death of Charles, they were purchased by Cromwell,

Q

226 COLOUR OF RAPHAEL'S CARTOONS,

"and hid in deal cases at Whitehall — at least they
were so found after the Restoration. Charles II.,
with less feeling, sold them, rather underhandedly,
to the French Minister Barillon, when Lord Danby
upset the sale." They were for the first time put
together, and placed, by William III., in their pre-
sent home, a gallery built for them by Sir Christopher
Wren, from which they were removed — to Bucking-
ham House in 1776, and thence to Windsor in 1788.
The rumour that the Queen Consort of George the
Third wished to send them to Germany is probably
one of the many falsehoods propagated respecting
that lady.

But before we censure the indifference of former
ages, by which they have so often been exposed to
destruction, we should do well to inquire how far
they are, even now, secured as they should be, in
every possible way, from the fate of their companions ;
for we are not to suppose, because these seven have
so often escaped, they "bear a charmed life." Their
preservation is indeed a matter that requires the most
serious consideration, for had they even been well en-
graved or copied, which they never have, their loss
would be irreparable. Their removal from Hampton
Court has been more than once suggested ; and when
the National Gallery was built, some artists urged the
propriety of placing them in it ; but this was wisely
opposed by the late Mr. Seguier, on the ground that
they would be soon blackened by the smoke of Lon-
don, from which they could not be cleaned. The
only risk of any kind to which they are exposed,
where they are, is, however, an awful one. Were the

AND THEIR PRESERVATION

room in which they hang to take fire, their destruction
would be but the work of a few minutes ; and were
the palace to take fire, in a distant part, they could
not be removed without certain, and probably great,
injury, — for they are too large to pass through the
doors or windows. It is frightful therefore to reflect
that their present home is not fire-proof; though, on
every other account, it is admirably calculated for
their preservation.

I saw them, for the first time, forty-three years ago.
Holloway was then engraving them, and the " Sacrifice
at Lystra " was standing on the floor. It is the most
injured, and my attention was particularly called to
its state, and I cannot now detect in it the least
change for the worse, nor can I see any alteration in
the others. Sir Christopher Wren has shown great
judgment in building a room for them as far as he
had space at his disposal. No doubt, had it been in
his power, he would have made it long enough to
admit them in one line opposite the windows, where
they would all have received that equal reflected light
that the five so placed do receive, and by which they
are not only well seen, but less liable to fade than in a
stronger light. The room, being to the north, is never
invaded by the sun, and scarcely by flies, and those
that do find their way to it remain at the windows ;
and whenever I have examined the Cartoons closely,
I have been unable to detect fly -marks on their
surface. It is true they would be better seen some-
what lower, but not so well if they stood on the floor,
and even then their high horizons would not be level
with the spectator's eye. But, indeed, there is a para-

228 PICTURES AT HAMPTON COURT

mount reason for their high situations, the necessity
of their being above the reach of fingers.

It has been suggested, in case of their removal to
London, that they should be covered with glass. This
might preserve them from smoke, but it would very
much hide them from sight. I have spent much time
in this, of all the galleries in England the most in-
teresting to an artist, and I can answer for the extreme
care taken of the Cartoons by the gentleman who has
charge of the state-rooms of the Palace ; and all that
can be hoped is, that, if ever there should be a
change in their locality, they may be placed where
they will be as well cared for.

Their removal to London, it is to be hoped, will
never again be thought of. But might not a fire-proof
room, on the plan of their present one, as far as it is
advantageous, be connected with the Palace that now
holds them ?

Although, at Hampton Court there are a great
number of mere furniture pictures, yet, independently
of the Cartoons, the collection is interesting as con-
taining a few of the remains of that splendid one
formed by Charles I. Of these the Tintorets, the
" Esther," and the Muses," are the most important,
and I know not that there are any other works of
Tintoret in England equal to them. There are also
some fine Bassans, though few of these are placed
where they can be seen, and an excellent Palma, the
"Shepherd's Offering." Of the pictures by Jan de
Mabuse (James IV. of Scotland and his Queen), that
of the king is the finest. The face of the king has
been injured and repainted, but the rest of the picture

PICTURES A T HAMPTON COURT 229

is in a good condition, and the effect of the whole is
surprisingly fresh and bright in colour.-"- The " Ador-
ation of the Magi," by Carlo Cagliari, is also a fine
specimen of colour, and, being in a very good con-
dition, I would strongly recommend it as a study,
though it is not possible to see the entire picture from
any one point, as it is placed opposite to the windows
of the room. Indeed it is much to be regretted that
the best pictures in this collection are, in but few in-
stances, placed where they can well be seen, while so
much space is occupied by large works of no interest
or merit, such as the Sebastian Riccis, and Kneller's
equestrian picture of William III. Of the portraits, of
which there are many good ones, I shall have occa-
sion to speak in another section. A very interesting
portion of the pictures collected by Charles I. is the
series, in distemper, by Andrea Mantegna, represent-
ing a triumph of Julius Caesar. Essentially opposed
as their early and immature style is to that of Rubens,

1 Pilkington, who makes Jan de Mabuse too young to have
painted them, is corrected by Bryant, who, no doubt, rightly
dates his birth in or near the year in which Albert Durer was
born. These pictures were, evidently, the wings or shutters to
an altar-piece, probably destroyed during the Reformation in Scot-
land. On the reverse of the first is painted God supporting the
body of Christ, and on the other a portrait of a middle-aged man
kneeling, and behind him two angels, one of whom plays on an
organ. The four pictures are not unworthy of Albert Durer
himself; they require some little reparation, and are richly
deserving of every possible care. They, as well as the little,
highly-finished, faded picture of three of the children of Henry
VII., disprove, I think, the authenticity of the **Adam and
Eve," and another picture at Hampton Court, attributed to Jan
de Mabuse.

230 PICTURES AT HAMPTON COURT

still their gaiety and picturesque magnificence must
have been very captivating to the great restorer of the
Flemish school, as, on the most beautiful of the series,
that where the elephants appear, he founded a rich
composition, parts of which are strictly copied from
Mantegna, while other parts are entirely his own. It
is in the possession of Mr. Rogers.

SECTION XIV

On the Flemish and Dutch Painters of the
Seventeenth Century

Barry nearly placed himself out of the pale of Art
when he wrote— " Rubens, Rembrandt, Vandyke,
Teniers, and Skalken, are without the pales of my
church," because, whatever the deficiencies of the
greatest of these painters, the mind that could be in-
sensible to their merit must have a very limited per-
ception of any of the excellences of Painting. The
last name on the list forms an anti-climax that clearly
proves how well Barry had kept his resolution of hold-
ing " no intercourse " with the others. Had he spent
the time he wasted in transcribing Burke's " Essay on
the Sublime and Beautiful," in rightly studying Rubens
and Rembrandt, he would have discovered that all
that is sublime and beautiful is not confined to the
antique, or monopolised by the Italians, and his large
canvases in the Adelphi might perhaps be regarded
with more interest than they have ever excited.

Fuseli, a critic of a very different order, speaks of
Rubens and Rembrandt as "meteors in Art." But if
their light was sudden in its appearance, it has been
enduring in its influence. Rubens was the regenerator
of the Flemish school, of which the painters imme-

232 FLEMISH AND DUTCH PAINTERS

diately preceding him had inflated themselves into
absurdity, in the vain attempt to swell to the dimen-
sions of Michael Angelo.

As a master, the honour of being the instructor of
Vandyke would have been sufficiently great. But, to
say nothing of his other scholars, among whom Diepen-
beke and Snyders are conspicuous, he was the master
of Watteau, born nearly half a century after his death,
Hogarth owed much of the richness of his composition
to him, and his instruction certainly reached to
Reynolds and to Stothard ; while all the landscape-
painters who succeeded him, in his own country, as
well as all in England, down to the present time, are
more or less indebted to him. We may cavil as we
will at the faults of Rubens, and he had many, but we
cannot refuse to bow in submissive homage before the
great painter whose influence has been of such un-
ceasing value for two hundred years.

If there were fewer pictures with his name, he
would stand higher. To comprehend his excellence
fully, we must study his studies, the small sketches
and pictures which he placed in the hands of his
assistants. The Descent from the Cross" was^
doubtless, all his own, though, unfortunately, it can-
not now be called so; and we may feel tolerably
sure that in the pictures in the National Gallery, that
bear his name, we see the work of his own hand ;
most certainly in the "St. Bavon,'' and that inimitable
sketch for the ceiling at Whitehall. Blenheim is rich
in fine and entire w^orks of Rubens, and, in the col-
lection of the Marquis of Westminster, the " Ixion and
Juno " is assuredly one. But, in general, we can only

OF THE SE VENTEENTH CENTUR Y 233

be certain that we see his pencil in his portraits, his
landscapes, and in such inimitable sketches as the
" Venus and Mars " (though this is rather a finished
picture than a sketch) in the collection of Mr.
Rogers.

The greatest possible fulness and richness of com-
position, with the greatest possible unity, are among
the peculiar characteristics of Rubens. His most
crowded canvases present an aspect as single in
impression as the most simple pictures of Rembrandt ;
for there is not on their surfaces a touch of the pencil
that has not reference to the whole, as strictly as it
has to the smallest part. Hence, however compli-
cated his compositions, it gives us no trouble to look
at them, for the eye is never fatigued or bewildered
in attempting to thread a maze through the intricacies
of which he leads us.

When his want of taste in form is dwelt on, it must
always be borne in mind that human form alone is
meant. Of the beauty, the grandeur, the harmony of
form in the abstract, he had the most perfect sense,
whether of single objects, or the result of combination.
Thus, the shapes of his masses of light and of dark,
however simple or however complicated, are always
impressive in the highest degree, and his pictures
attract our admiration at a distance too great for us
to distinguish the particulars of which they are made,
and have in them that which would rivet the eye even
were they placed upside down. This sense of beauty
and grandeur of combination cannot be communi-
cated; we can only say that the gross figure of a
Silenus, in the hands of Rubens (though we cannot

234 FLEMISH AND DUTCH PAINTERS

say how it is done), is always made to contribute to
the general beauty of the composition, while the
contour of an Apollo may, if ill-combined with other
forms, or injured by a bad choice of light and shadow,
affect the eye disagreeably.

The capability of delineating forms of specific
beauty is, comparatively, of easy acquirement, and
there are probably few eyes that may not, by culti-
vation, attain the power of avoiding what is most
offensive in accidental shapes. But to perceive at
once, and be able to transfer to canvas, in their per-
fection, those beauties in which Nature leaves us a
choice, as in the wreathing of smoke or the undula-
tions of a flag, is the true test of a painter's taste in
composition — a taste for which Rubens was pre-emi-
nently distinguished. He is the master who most
united richness and variety of ornament with Nature ;
and though imitated with more or less success by the
Machinists of later times, yet the life and truth of his
style will always keep him entirely distinct from that
large class of painters.

It is not difficult to copy the general effect of a
picture, the forms of its masses of light and of shade,
or its arrangements of colours, at the same time vary-
ing all the materials that contribute to these, sub-
stituting, for instance, a light object for the light of a
window, or a dark object for a shadow ; or we may
further disguise the theft of a general effect, by re-
versing or inverting it. We may thus get credit for
what is not our own ; but this will not in the least
help us to the power of originating a fine arrange-
ment, without a sense of the one indispensable thing

OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 235

in a picture to which all minor beauties that would
interfere with it are to be unhesitatingly sacrificed,
however captivating in themselves ; and which all the
parts must co-operate to produce. Such a sense the
best painters no doubt acquired by allowing their
studies of Nature and of pictures to go hand in hand.

In another place, I have spoken of Rubens as the
great master of action. In a few of his landscapes
the sentiment is that of repose, but of his composition
generally, movement is the principle ; even in his
architecture, — wherever he can do so with propriety,
— he introduces shapes suggestive of motion, such as
twisted pillars and serpentine forms. Fuseli describes
the materials of his pictures as "swept along in a
gulf of colours ; as herbage, trees, and shrubs, are
whirled, tossed, and absorbed, by an inundation."
The stream of his light and shadow is, indeed, among
his greatest charms. But it is incident to genius, so
animated as his, to delight itself beyond bounds in
what it can do best, and Rubens not only in some
instances overstrains the action of his figures, but
surfeits the eye with movement. There is a picture,
entirely his own work, in the Louvre, "A Rustic
Wedding," filled with figures, dancing, romping, and
rolling on the ground. Even those that sit and stand
seem incapable of sitting or standing still. It is
indeed a wonderful display of the most difficult atti-
tudes mastered with consummate ease ; but, were any
similar subject by Teniers placed beside it, its utter
improbability with reference to Nature would at once
appear.

Rubens threw out the conceptions of his magnifi-

236 FLEMISH AND DUTCH PAINTERS

cent mind with a liberality that distinguished him in
all things. No mean or sordid man could have given
the greatness which is stamped on his works ; a great-
ness, however, that might have been combined with
a purer taste, and the chief drawback from which is
that indifference to the gross and the repulsive, char-
acteristic of all the painters of the Low Countries of
the age in which he lived. It is easy to avoid his
faults, not so easy to attain his excellences.

Rembrandt was caricatured by Hogarth as debasing
sacred things by low and ludicrous imagery, while the
latest of his eulogists, Mr. Charles Blanc, considers
him the most impressive of all the painters of religious
subjects. But it is generally discovered, on becoming
thoroughly acquainted with men, that the character of
every individual has two sides, and so it is with the
productions of genius. All the faults are to be found
in Rembrandt that Hogarth pointed out; and the
reason of his ridicule was this : The rage for pur-
chasing at enormous prices the rare states of Rem-
brandt's etchings was at its greatest height in Eng-
land, and Hogarth heard nothing from the lips of the
buyers and sellers of these works but indiscriminate
admiration of everything in them, while his own
engravings, though bought by the public, were not
considered by the connoisseurs worthy to lie in their
portfolios with Rembrandt's, nor his pictures to hang
with any of the great masters. It was natural, there-
fore, that Hogarth should look but at the faulty side
of Rembrandt, while Mr. Charles Blanc looks only at
the other, and feels that the most touching incidents
of the Gospel are treated by him with a pathos and

OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 237

unaffected simplicity, priceless in such subjects. He
looks at Rembrandt's conception of Christianity as
directing our attention to its peculiar beneficence to
the miserable and the friendless of this world ; gather-
ing at the feet of its Divine Author the poor and the
infirm, young and old, who there implore His heal-
ing power, or in patient confidence await it, or listen
with reverent attention to His gracious words, while
rich and well-fed rabbis stand by unmoved, or whisper
to each other their contempt, or their surmises of dia-
bolic agency. He does the fullest justice to Rem-
brandt's great powers, and sees not, or will not
notice, his faults.

On the other hand. Dr. Kugler never alludes to the
pathos of the "sturdy and gloomy republican," as he
styles him. And in this passage, and in others in
which he speaks of his " dark feeling of dreamy power
and subdued passion," and of the " gloomy character "
of his mind, he confounds Rembrandt's admiration of
the grandeur of shade, and the breadth of nocturnal
effects, with metaphysical gloom. This is a great
mistake. Instances might be cited of pictures ex-
hibiting not only gloom, but wretchedness of mind
in their authors, with very little of shade in their
treatment.

To me, the prevailing tone of Rembrandt's mind,
as shown in his Art, is serenity — as clearly as that of
Raphael's is urbanity. Where the subject allows him,
his natural disposition seems always tranquil; and
though serious, yet the very reverse of gloomy.
Gloom is restless; — it overspreads Salvator Rosa's
Art as it does that of the schools in which he was

238 FLEMISH AND DUTCH PAINTERS

reared. But Rembrandt, often solemn in the highest
degree, and often in the highest degree pathetic, shows
nothing of constitutional melancholy. He is the
painter of repose, as Rubens is the painter of action ;
and in his portraits, as in those of Reynolds, the ex-
pression is most frequently that of calm thoughtful-
ness. Whatever else, therefore, there may be in
common between the style of Rembrandt and that of
Caravaggio or Spagnoletti, the gloomy, the melan-
choly, and the savage, are qualities it does not share
with theirs. He delights in the stillness of night, but
not as one who hates day; while Caravaggio delighted
in turning day into night.

How far the style of Rembrandt grew out of that
of the Italian Naturalistic it grew, at any rate, into
much greater importance, and became far more in-
teresting; and this was the result not only of his
superior taste in the imitation of Nature, but also, as
I think, of his placid temperament. I know no work
of his hand that strikes me as more entirely after his
own heart than a night scene, an interior, in which a
woman is reading by a light (which her person hides
from the spectator) to an older woman, who has a
spinning-wheel by her side and a cradle at her feet,
in which an infant is sleeping. In description, all
this sounds very ordinary ; but the picture is one of
the most impressive that ever came from the hand
even of Rembrandt. The window shutters are closed,
the world is shut out, and it requires no stretch of
imagination to suppose that the book with which both
are engaged relates to a higher world, — a thought with
which the image of the sleeping babe is in unison.

OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 239

But, however we may read the picture, its effect is in
the highest degree tranquillising and soothing, and
akin to that produced by Cowper's exquisite descrip-
tion of evening, beginning with —

"Let fall the curtains." 1

A higher subject by his hand, and a much more
solemn one, " Our Saviour and the two Disciples at
Emmaus," possesses the same charm of the silence
of night, broken by a gentle voice, which the painter
makes almost audible. In such Art I fancy I see
the real tone of Rembrandt's mind, — serious and
meditative, but placid, and as far removed from
gloom as the subjects of these pictures; and of all
the " portraits he has painted of himself this is the
character \ in the head, particularly, in Her Majesty's
collection, a mind at peace with itself and with all
the world, is charmingly expressed. His portrait of
himself, lately added to the national collection, though
it may be genuine, does not seem to me in any
respect to do justice to his Art. A head stuck close
against a wall is a very uncommon thing from a
painter so fond of depth and space.

As I have endeavoured to rescue Rembrandt from
what I consider the false impression that his mind
was a gloomy one, so I cannot but here notice other
charges injurious to his memory. I have heard him
stigmatised as "a sot and a miser^'' and, conse-
quently, incapable of any refinement or elevation
of sentiment.

The climate of Holland, and the habits of the age
1 This picture is in England, but I know not where.

240 FLEMISH AND DUTCH PAINTERS

in which he hved, may account for, and in some de-
gree excuse, his not being a water-drinker. Neither
Addison nor Burns were water-drinkers, and yet the
first wrote with refinement and the last with subHmity.
Walpole said, coarsely, of Addison, that "he died
maudlin, and with, perhaps, as much truth as that
Rembrandt was a sot.

With respect to the more hateful charge that he
was a miser, it may be noticed that among the very
few things known of him, it is certain that about ten
years before his death all he possessed was sold to
satisfy the claims of a mortgage. Misers do not
become bankrupts, and the inventory of his property
shows that he possessed a very large collection of
works of Art, comprising specimens of all the schools
of Europe. He had also many objects of natural
history — proving, if proof were needed, that what-
ever might be his fondness for money, his love of Art
and of Nature was greater. It is remarkable also,
that between thirty and forty of his own pictures were
on his hands, besides a far greater number of his
sketches, which makes it probable that the patronage
he received was not so constant as it has been
represented; and the sale which took place of his
house and property may have given rise to the story
of his pretending to be dead, in order that his works
might be sold.

The inventory proves him to have been an ad-
mirer of styles very unHke his own, excepting in their
excellence. He had some pictures by Raphael, as
well as a large collection of engravings from his
works, and also from those of Michael Angelo.

OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 241

Men of great and original genius, who, like Rem-
brandt, have little of what is ordinarily called educa-
tion, and who seem wayward in their tastes and
habits, are sometimes looked upon as inspired idiots.
But in the mind of such a man, the immense amount
of knowledge accumulated by close and silent obser-
vation, knowledge of a kind not to be communicated
by words, is something wholly inconceivable to the
learned merely in books; and if their reading has
opened to them a world from which he is shut out, he
also lives in a world of his own, equally interesting,
the wisdom and enjoyment of which his pencil is
constantly employed in communicating to all who
have eyes for the sublime aspects of Nature, and
hearts fitted to receive such impressions through their
eyes.

The very few sayings recorded of Rembrandt are
remarkable for their mother-wit and sound sense.

"On one occasion," says his pupil Hoogstraten,
"when I was very troublesome to my master Rem-
brandt, by asking him too many questions respecting
the causes of things, he replied very judiciously :
* Try to put well in practice what you already know ;
in so doing you will, in good time, discover the hid-
den things which you now inquire about.'" — "A
picture," he said, "is finished when the painter has
done with it." And when the works of his latest and
best practice in execution were examined too closely,
and probably criticised as unfinished, he said his
pictures " were not intended to be smelt, but looked
at." He felt the restraint of what is considered
superior society, and either avoided or stole from it

R

242 FLEMISH AND DUTCH PAINTERS

on the first occasion ; and, when asked his reason,
replied, — "If I wish to relax from study, it is not
honour, but liberty and ease that I seek."^

The etchings of Rembrandt, which have hitherto
been as a sealed book to artists, on account of their
costliness, are now placed within our reach by photo-
graphy; and we are promised, by the publishers in
Paris, the complete series of these inestimable works.

Fuseli says of Rembrandt that "he had no fol-
lowers," by which he must mean that he had no
successors equal, in all things, to himself. This, how-
ever, is only repeating what is true of every man of
genius. Not to speak of the pupils who studied in
his house, the entire Dutch school received from him,
as the Flemish school had received from Rubens, a
new and healthy impulse, which placed it high above
its previous condition. His closest imitators — Bol,
Flink, and, at a later period, Dietrich — were, as
respects all the great qualities of Art, the furthest
removed from him ; — and Gerard Dow, though often
spoken of as the most distinguished of his scholars,
had nothing in common with his greatness.

If " none knew like Rembrandt how to give import-
ance to a trifle," Gerard Dow, on the other hand,
turned the most important things into trifles. His
mind was a very ingenious, and a very small one. By
dint of extreme patience, under the guidance of a cor-
rect, but not a fine, eye, he produced works of a class,

1 For these anecdotes I am indebted to Sir Charles Eastlake's
Materials for the History of Oil Painting," and Mr. Smith's

*'Catalogive Raisonne of the Dutch, Flemish, and French

Painters.

OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 243

which, as Sir Joshua Reynolds says, are "looked at
with admiration on the lips, and indifference in the
heart." The finest picture I ever saw by him is that
little one in the collection of Lord Ellesmere. It
is his most direct and successful imitation of Rem-
brandt's early works ; it has a delicacy of touch that
is marvellous, and I like it the better for having little
colour, for he was no colourist; — but while I am
admiring it, I feel, as I do before the pictures of
Wouvermans, that the artist has transported me to
Lilliput.

Nicholas Maas was the one great painter among the
immediate scholars of Rembrandt j for he alone com-
prehended the grandeur of his chiaroscuro, and, with-
out attempting to reproduce his effects, found in Nature
combinations for himself, to the power of seeing which
he was no doubt greatly helped by his master.

Lord Lindsay, in his " General Classification of
Schools and Artists," speaks of the Ideal becoming
extinct "in flowers and fruit, pots and pans." But
they who appreciate the Dutch and Flemish schools
must feel that in the treatment, even of these things,
there is an ideal or beautiful, as distinct from a literal
imitation. The superiority of De Heem and Rachel
Ruisch to Van Huysum in fruit and flowers, and of
Teniers to Gerard Dow in pots and pans, and in
these again the superiority of Nicholas Maas to Teniers,
are matters of consequence to artists.

The works of Maas are remarkably few. It is said
he was employed much on portraits, but they are
not often to be met with. There are few pictures in
our National Gallery before which I find myself more

244 FLEMISH AND DUTCH PAINTERS

often standing than the very small one by him, the
subject of which is the scraping a parsnip. A decent-
looking Dutch housewife sits intently engaged in this
operation, with a fine chubby child standing by her
side watching the process, as children will stand and
watch the most ordinary operations, with an intensity
of interest as if the very existence of the whole world
depended on the exact manner in which that parsnip
was scraped. It is not the colour and light and shadow
of this charming little gem, superlative as they are,
that constitute its great attraction ; for a mere outline
of it would arrest attention among a thousand subjects
of its class, and many pictures as beautiful in effect
might not interest so much ; but it is the delight at
seeing a trait of childhood, we have often observed and
been amused with in Nature, for the first time so
felicitously given by Art. I have noticed the natural
manner in which Raphael and other great painters
represented children, as wholly uninterested in that
which engages the attention of their elders. Here
the incident is exactly the reverse, and treated with
equal felicity. The companion picture is rich in
colour, but has not the interest of this ; and there
is another fine picture by Maas, in the National
Gallery, a maid sleeping over her work in a scullery,
the foreground of which is, however, somewhat rubbed; '
but a picture in Her Majesty's collection exhibits the
summit of his power in colour and chiaroscuro.

Of all the Dutch painters of familiar life, Jan Steen ;
is acknowledged to be the greatest genius. The '
humour and whim in his compositions disclose to us
a mind quite distinct from the rest ; and the love of

OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 24.5

childhood displayed in his works, shows that with all
his eccentricities there was something good in his
nature ; and, indeed, unless that be the case, I doubt
the power of any artist, whatever may be his genius,
to interest us deeply. I know not that any other
painter combines such completion of finish at so
apparently small an expense of labour as Jan Steen,
in his best pictures. But haste, perhaps occasioned
by his necessities, towards the close of his life, made
him throw off works which, though they might have
made the reputation of other men, are scarcely worthy
of him. His pictures have, more than those of most
painters, an apparent artlessness of contrivance, — the
result not of ignorance, but of that originality which,
disregarding common rules, works out its purposes by
methods of its own, and yet faultlessly. Jan Steen
seems, indeed, from the unmistakable evidences of
rapidity his works present, to have had the whole of
his art, not only always present in his mind, but at
his fingers' ends. He seems to have painted as
quickly and as surely as Shakspeare is said to have
written. Others have, no doubt, equalled him in
this, but who with such results? — excepting only a
still greater genius — Rubens.

Slight in execution as are some of his late works,
there are early pictures by him, and some of these are
in Her Majesty's collection, as highly finished as the
most elaborate of Gerard Dow, and with a much
finer taste. The excellence of his colour has been
pointed out by Reynolds ; but there is one point in
which he as well as the other Dutch painters are the
best possible guides. Mr. Ruskin has noticed that

246 FLEMISH AND DUTCH PAINTERS

"modern painters in general have not a proper sense
of the value of dirt ; cottage children never appear but
in freshly got-up caps and aprons, and white-handed
beggars excite compassion in unexceptionable rags."
Now it is very easy to make everything look dirty,
and there are styles of bad colouring that cannot avoid
doing so, and in which Venus herself, rising from the
sea, will seem to stand in need of washing. But it is
no paradox to say that even dirt should not be painted
to look dirty ^ and this is exactly what colourists like
Jan Steen understood. Hence their pictures, even
when their subjects are from the lowest condition of
humanity, are not, in respect to colour, repulsive,
however so in their 'incidents ; but, without anything
of that clean look in the dresses, persons, and furni-
ture, of their pictures, that would be out of character,
and also without the monotony or wretchedness of
dirty colour, their negative hues, which fill their
largest masses, are here and there contrasted by small
portions of red, orange, or other bright colours, that,
so surrounded, glow like gems.

How they managed this I do not know ; I can
only point out the result, which is one of the charms
of Ostade, who, more than any other painter, resembles
Rembrandt, in his admiration (for so it seems) of
human ugliness and deformity, and who often^ as Rem-
brandt sometiines did, carries us into scenes which we
would not willingly enter in real life, but which he
adorns with all the charms of Art, and often witli
traits of domestic interest, by which he penetrates to
the heart, to where the tedious mechanism of Gerard
Dow never yet reached. The hard-working, and there-

j

4

OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 247

fore prematurely old-looking, parents, caressing their
old-looking children with that natural simplicity which
this perfect master of expression felt so truly; the
relish of their enjoyments increased by their fewness ;
are, I confess, far more to my taste than the cottage
incidents of many other painters, who, more ambitious
of story, aim to be sentimental; and though such
painters avoid all that is objectionable in Ostade, and
take care to give beauty enough, yet, like Greuze, for
instance — the best of the class of which I am speaking
— they carry the mind more into the theatre than into
rustic life.

The excellence of Art consists in what it is not, as
well-;as in what it is ; and, to me, a great merit of the
Flemish and Dutch painters is the absence of all
affected and mawkish sensibility — all that stage
trickery of the spectator by which he is made to
believe himself touched at heart. This false senti-
ment began with Greuze, and has ever since more or
less infected modern Art. There is an engraving by
Le Bas, from Teniers, entitled the "Miseries of War."
It represents the outrages committed in a small
village by a band of soldiers. Yet no woeful maiden,
with hair dishevelled, throws herself on the body of
her murdered lover, in an attitude as carefully arranged
to display the charms of her person as her grief In-
stead of this, a plain countrywoman intercedes for the
life of an old peasant, and some soldiers are binding
the arms of the village priest, who stands in patient
submission, with his eyes raised to Heaven. There
are other incidents, all the more touching for an entire
absence of theatrical, or modern pictorial effect ; and.

248 FLEMISH AND DUTCH PAINTERS

like all the out-door scenes of Teniers, it has a very
fine sky.

If painters are to be classed by their subjects, the
lowest of all would be two of the rarest excellence,
Terburg and Metsu. It is true they avoided poverty
and ugliness, but their pictures, and especially Ter-
burg's, are often mere exhibitions of vice, with noth-
ing of the gaiety of Jan Steen, or those touches of
humorous satire that he, though by no means a rigid
moralist, seldom failed to throw into such scenes.
Terburg's soldiers carouse without merriment, and
his notion of love may be seen in an exquisitely-
painted picture, in the Louvre, in which a handsome
woman carefully counts, with her eyes, a handful of
money offered to her by a middle-aged cavalier ; and
he sometimes descends so low as to show us a well-
dressed woman tippling by herself, with a glass raised
to her lips, and a stone jug in her lap. If such pic-
tures are without the satire of Hogarth, they have an
unintentional moral in their sordid, matter-of-fact
treatment, their utter want of any refinement of senti-
ment; and while their perfection recommends them
to the eye, they have nothing that can corrupt the
mind, but everything that is repulsive to it. Though
there is seldom much of animated expression in the
pictures of Terburg and Metsu, it is not because they
had not the power of giving it. Their expression is
always perfect; and in the collection of Mr. Hope
there is a picture by the latter in which he rises far
above the ordinary interest of his subjects. — A beau-
tiful woman is pouring out her very soul on paper,
and so entirely absorbed as to be unconscious that

THE SATIN GOWN — BY GERARD TERBURG.

OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 249

every word she is writing is read by him who, it is
plain, from his indignation, is the person of all others
from whom she would conceal it. He has stolen
behind her on tiptoe, carefully holding his sword close
to his side, that she may not hear him. A story of
love and jealousy could not be better, and has rarely
been so well, told.

The subjects of these two painters, when they rose
above those scenes in which vice is a matter of traffic,
are either card or music parties, or music lessons.
In Her Majesty's collection are fine specimens of
both, " The Blue Boddice " being the very finest pic-
ture by Terburg I ever saw — a work which, had he
painted nothing else, would have placed him at the
top of the Art.

The materials offered by Terburg and Metsu to the
eye are admirably suited to a display of colour and
execution. Petticoats of the costliest satins, bordered
with silver ; jackets of the richest velvets, trimmed
with ermine ; polished cuirasses ; embroidered sword-
belts ; the most picturesque of boots and of slouched
hats j tables covered with Persian carpets ; richly-
ornamented silver dishes and tankards; projecting
chimneys of variegated marbles; and all relieved
from backgrounds of dark tapestries, and presented to
us with a delicacy of finish sometimes equal to Van
Eyck, but with the addition of a suavity of manner
unknown to the early Art of any country, first
adopted, from Nature, by Correggio, and from him
introduced by Rubens and Rembrandt into their
schools.

When speaking of colour, I have spoken of De

250 FLEMISH AND DUTCH PAINTERS

Hooge. But I must here say something more of this
original painter ; perhaps, with the exception of Rem-
brandt, the most original of the Dutch school. Scarcely
anything is known of his history ; but he seems from
the very commencement of his studies to have aimed
at a single object, to which throughout his life he
never ceased to devote himself, till at last he suc-
ceeded in it beyond any other painter, unless it be
Claude. This object was to express light. For the
subjects of his early pictures he chose interiors,
generally filled with music -parties, and all within
the apartment was subdued to a very low and cool
tone, for the sole purpose of giving splendour to
gleams of sunshine seen through windows or doors.
But, as he advanced, he acquired the superior power
of spreading light throughout his compositions with-
out interfering with the brilliancy of its source. He
painted the effects of sunbeams upon walls with a
truth and a taste unequalled before or after him ; and
the out-door scenes of his best time have a lumi-
nous quality which he did not acquire by studying
pictures, but with which he was at last rewarded for
his close observation of tones in Nature to which or-
dinary eyes are sealed. A picture, formerly in the
possession of Mr. Wells, in which a man sits drink-
ing in the open air, while a woman stands near him,
and a little girl at a short distance, is a fine specimen
of his best period, and so is one, much like it in
subject, in the collection of Lady Peel. The finest of
his interiors that I have seen is, "The Card-Players,"
in Her Majesty's collection, of which I attempted a
description in the Section on Colour.

OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 251

Italy is sometimes called " the land of poetry ; "
but Nature impresses the varied sentiment of her
varying moods as eloquently on flat meadows and
straight canals, as on mountains, valleys, and winding
streams ; and visits the mill and the cottage with the
same splendid phenomena of light and shadow as she
does the palace. This was well understood by Cuyp
and Ruysdael, and their most impressive pictures
are often made out of the fewest and the simplest
materials.

There is a small Sunset " by Cuyp in the Dul-
wich collection. It has not a tree, except in the
extreme distance, nor scarcely a bush, but it has one
of the finest skies ever painted, and this is enough,
for its glow pervades the whole, giving the greatest
value to the exquisitely-arranged colour of a near
group of cattle, — bathing the still water and distance
in a flood of mellow light, and turning into golden
ornaments a very few scattered weeds and brambles
that rise here and there from the broadly-shadowed
foreground into the sunshine, gaining great import-
ance from their nearness to the eye.

In the hands of Ruysdael, a windmill and a stunted
tree or two are sufficient, under the effects with which
he envelops them, to impress us infinitely beyond
anything that can be effected by an ordinary painter,
with the most magnificent materials of Alpine scenery.
Solemnity is the charm of his pictures ; tranquil and
soothing, it never, with him, degenerates into melan-
choly. Though I know no work of his hand that
does not command admiration, I like him best in the
flat and open scenery of his own country, or of the

252 FLEMISH AND DUTCH PAINTERS

sea that washes its shores, where he shows himself by
far the greatest of all the marine painters of his time.

Of the younger Teniers, whose landscape compo-
sitions are incomparably his best works, there are
admirable specimens at Dulwich, and one very fine
one in the collection of the Marquis of Westminster.
The power of giving importance to trifles, which
Fuseli ascribes to Rembrandt, who, as he said, " could
pluck a flower in every desert," is shared with him by
those of whom I have been speaking ; and " we derive,"
as Constable said, *'the pleasure of surprise from the
works of the best Dutch painters, in finding how much
interest the Art, when in perfection, can give to the
most ordinary subjects."

The wealthy Burgomasters of the period under
notice, appear to have been liberal patrons of Art, but
they were not infallible judges ; for neither Cuyp nor
Ruysdael were appreciated while they lived. With
respect to Cuyp, we learn from Mr. Smith the astound-
ing fact, that "by a reference to numerous Dutch
catalogues of the principal collections sold in Holland,
down to 1750, there is no example of any picture by
his hand selling for more than thirty florins, or some-
thing less than three pounds sterling ! " The heartless
mannerisms of Bergham and Both, which represent
neither Dutch nor Italian Art, being hybrid mixtures
of the two, were in greater request, and are still more
valued than they deserve to be ; while, among the
painters of familiar life, Dow and Mieris seem to have
been more popular than Ostade, Terburg, Metsu, De
Hooge, or Nicholas Maas; and, in subjects of a
higher class than theirs, Vanderwerf gained a reputa-

OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 253

tion which has long ceased to connect itself with his
pictures. With respect to him, it is clear that, even
to the time of Reynolds, his name was one of import-
ance, or Sir Joshua would not have devoted so large
a space in his " Journey through Flanders and Hol-
land " to an exposure of the vices of his style ; whose
remarks on Vanderwerf I would recommend to the
careful perusal of the student, for a clear explanation
of important principles of Nature, that should never
be, but often are, lost sight of.

In this brief sketch of the Flemish and Dutch
schools, I have been obliged to omit any mention of
some painters of first-rate excellence in their several
branches of Art. I have not space to say anything
of Paul Potter, Emanuel de Witt, WilHam Vander-
velde, Louis Vadder (who visited Italy to much better
purpose than Both or Bergham), Arnold Vanderneer,
and others, if of less note, yet not therefore noteless.

SECTION XV

On La7idscape

Our intellectual tastes should elevate and purify our
natures ; but, in some directions, they are not inapt
to degenerate into mere luxurious indulgences, and a
long catalogue might be made out of gross and selfish
men, who have yet been patrons of Art. But the
love of landscape is a love so pure, that it can never
associate with the relishes of a mere voluptuary, and
wherever such a love is native, it is the certain indi-
cation of a superior mind. Shakspeare sends us to
find

''tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything."

Tongues and books that never lie, — sermons direct to
the heart, — and good unmixed with evil ; and the man
must be hopelessly wicked, or woefully blinded by
passion, who can plan or commit a wrong act while
these are addressing him.

How fine a scene is that in " The Antiquary," where
Edie Ochiltree tries to prevent the duel between Lovel
and MTntyre ! " ' What are you come here for, young
men ? ' he said ; ' are you come among the most lovely
works of God to break His laws ? Have you left the

ON LANDSCAPE 255

works of man, the houses and the cities, that are but
clay and dust, hke those that built them ; and are ye
come here among the peaceful hills, and by the quiet
waters, that will last whiles aught earthly shall endure,
to destroy each other's lives ? ' "

Such is the moral influence of Landscape, to which
no great painter was ever indifferent; nor can we
imagine any painter indifferent to its material beauty.
And yet Leonardo da Vinci tells us that his friend
Boticello " had a particular pique against landscapes,
and thought them much beneath his application ; the
effect of which was, that being a very sorry landscape-
pa^inter, his merit in other matters was less regarded.
It was a saying of his, that a palette full of colours
being thrown against the wall would leave a stain
behind it properly enough representing a landscape."

Leonardo prefaces this account by remarking that
" a painter who is not equally pleased with all parts
of his art, will never become universal." And I will
add that even a painter who should confine himself
to in-door subjects, cannot represent an open window
truly without some practical knowledge of landscape ;
and the greatest historical and portrait painters have
invariably studied it, not from pictures only, but from
the reality. Titian seems to have done that for
inanimate Nature which Michael Angelo did for human
form, in giving to it a grandeur unknown before in
Art ; and the background of the " Peter Martyr " has
been considered to mark an important epoch in the
history of landscape, being equally admirable for its
greatness and its finish.

The right appreciation of this lovely branch of

256

ON LANDSCAPE

Painting has suffered, like all the others, by classifica-
tion. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who does justice to the
genius of Gainsborough, refuses to rank his landscape
with poetic Art, and this could only arise from its
not being connected, like the landscape of Poussin
and Sebastian Bourdon, with classic incident; for
if Burns, in describing the banks of the Doon, writes
as a poet, why may not Gainsborough, with his ex-
treme sensibility to every beauty of Nature, paint like
one, though he take for his subject the most familiar
scenery of his own country ? — I should say that if
ever landscape was poetic on canvas, it is such land-
scape as his. Constable, in speaking of one of his
pictures, a work almost without details, said, "I
cannot think of it even now without tears in my
eyes;^ — with particulars he had nothing to do, his
object was to deliver a fine sentiment, and he has
fully accomplished it."

I can understand that a taste requiring a literal
completion of particulars will never be satisfied with
Gainsborough. Indeed, those who feel what he
accomplished, must often be content, like Cordelia,
to " love and be silent ; " cavils, they will find them-
selves unable to answer, will not disturb their enjoy-
ment— an enjoyment they cannot make intelligible to
minds not constituted or trained to receive it, however
they may feel sure that it is based on a genuine love
of Nature.

The faults of the highest Art may be easily and
clearly described by words ; but there are literally no
words for its most refined beauties, nor are there any
words to express the want of those beauties in Art

ON LANDSCAPE

257

that has all the ordinary appearances of truth.
Hence those plausible styles, that form the staple of
our exhibitions, and that fill our print-shop windows,
are safe from criticism and easily extolled ; and the
advantages to be derived from language being on the
side of inferior Art, nothing has been more common
than for great artists to be talked down and indiffer-
ent ones talked up. Hogarth was talked down, and
Penny, a now forgotten painter, talked up by no less
a critic than Barry. Wilson and Gainsborough were
talked down, while Smith, of Chichester, and Barrett
were talked up. Stothard, Flaxman, and Constable
suffered, when living, the same kind of depreciation,
while lesser artists were praised and patronised ; — and
Turner, when in the meridian of his glory, was ridiculed
without mercy by the fashionable leaders of taste.

Rocks, trees, mountains, plains, and waters, are the
features of landscape, but its expression is from
above ; and it is scarcely metaphorical to say Nature
smiles, or weeps, and is tranquil, sad, or disturbed
with rage, as the atmosphere affects her. Hence the
paramount importance of the sky in landscape, — an
importance not diminished, even when it forms but
a small portion of the composition.

" There is not a moment of any day of our lives,"
says Mr. Ruskin, "when Nature is not producing
scene after scene, picture after picture, glory after
glory, and working still upon such exquisite and
constant principles of the most perfect beauty, that it
is quite certain it is all done for us, and intended for
our perpetual pleasure. And every man, wherever
placed, however far from other sources of interest or

s

258

ON LANDSCAPE

of beauty, has this doing for him constantly. The
noblest scenes of the earth can be seen and known
but by few ; it is not intended that man should live
always in the midst of them ; he injures them by his
presence, he ceases to feel them if he be always with
them : but the sky is for all ; bright as it is, it is not

' Too bright nor good
For human nature's daily food ; '

it is fitted in all its functions for the perpetual com-
fort and exalting of the heart, for soothing it and
purifying it from its dross and dust."

And yet many are the landscape-painters who
seem, in their studies from Nature, as if they had
never raised their eyes above the horizon ; and
among the proofs of the indifference of those who
interest themselves in Art to the beauty that canopies
the earth, may be noticed that, although the composi-
tion and light and shade of clouds are as much
within the reach of the photographic art as any of
the other great things of Nature, they are her only
beauties it has hitherto entirely neglected. I have
seen but two calotypes of skies, and these (taken by
my friend, Mr. Thurston Thompson) prove that it is
from no want of power in the process that skies are
not as common in our photographic exhibitions as
any other subjects.

Turner's transcendent power of expressing atmo-
spheric phenomena more than atoned for eccentrici-
ties that would have ruined a lesser man : and
Constable spent entire summers in painting skies
from Nature. In a letter to a friend, dated October

ON LANDSCAPE

259

1 82 1, he says : — " I have done a good deal of skying,
for I am determined to conquer all difficulties, and
that among the rest. That landscape-painter who
does not make his sky a very material part of his
composition, neglects to avail himself of one of his
greatest aids. I have often been advised to consider
my sky as * a white sheet thrown behind the objects ! '
Certainly, if the sky is obtrusive, as mine are, it is
bad ; but if it is evaded, as mine are not, it is worse ;
it must, and always shall, with me, make an effectual
part of the composition. It will be difficult to name
a class of landscape in which the sky is not the key-
note, the standard of scale, and the chief organ of
sentiment. You may conceive, then, what a 'white
sheet' would do for me, impressed as I am with
these notions, — and they cannot be erroneous. The
sky is the source of light in Nature, and governs
everything ; even our common observations on the
weather of every day are altogether suggested by it.
The difficulty of skies in painting is very great, both
as to composition and execution; because, with all
their brilliancy, they ought not to come forward, or,
indeed, be hardly thought of, any more than extreme
distances are ; but this does not apply to phenomena,
or accidental effects of sky, because they always
attract particularly. I may say all this to you, though
yoic do not want to be told that I know very well
what I am about, and that my skies have not been
neglected though they have often failed in execution,
no doubt from an over -anxiety about them; which
will alone destroy that easy appearance which Nature
always has in all her movements."

26o

ON LANDSCAPE

The studies Constable made of skies were in oil, on
large sheets of stiff paper, and on the back of every
one are memoranda, of the date, the time of day, the
direction of the wind, and other remarks ; for instance
— "Sept. 6th, 1822, looking S.E. ; 12 to i o'clock,
fresh and bright, between showers ; much the look of
rain all the morning, but very fine and grand all the
afternoon and evening."

There are beautiful celestial phenomena not yet
made tributary to Art ; the lunar rainbow, for instance,
and the aurora -borealis. They are, perhaps, too
rarely seen to be understood by the general eye ; and
so it is with the ocean, the deep blue of which in fine
weather, approaching to black in storms, has never
been painted, marine subjects having hitherto been
taken from the narrow seas only ; and even in these
the splendid phosphorescent light seen in the foam of
the waves at night has not been attempted. There is
also a beautiful appearance in calm weather, when
large masses of bright clouds are reflected in broad
columns of light on the sea, just as the sun throws
his pillar of fire below him. I may be mistaken, but
I cannot recollect this in a picture, constant as its
appearance is in Nature, and familiar as it must be to
every eye. The truth is, we go on painting the
things that others and ourselves have painted before,
and do not look out of the Art nearly so much as we
should do. Now and then an original painter adds
something new and beautiful, but the most original
might be more so, were it not for that natural indolence
that makes even such too easily content to rest in what
has been done.

ON LANDSCAPE

261

As I cannot hope to add anything of value to the
much that has been said of the great landscape-
painters among the old masters, and as genuine land-
scape has, for the last century or more, existed only
in England, I will confine my observations to some
of the principal landscape-painters of the British
school.

Wilson should have been mentioned before Gains-
borough, as he was born first. This charming artist
began with portrait, in which he was not successful,
and which he quitted for landscape, in which he was
not successful either, in a worldly point of view,
though eminently so for the benefit of the world. In
truth and beauty of colour, and in his perception of
the greatness and breadth of Nature, he has never
been surpassed, and only equalled by the greatest
painters. His own mind is probably best seen in his
calm and lovely sunsets, and yet storms were never
more terrifically painted than by him.

That Sir Joshua Reynolds did not consider the
mere addition of classic incident as constituting the
poetry of landscape is clear from his remarks on the
" Niobe " of Wilson ; though he, no doubt, thought
it essential to the making landscape poetic. With re-
spect to the " Niobe," I think, with Sir Joshua, that
the introduction of the figure of Apollo is worse than
useless. As an awful representation of a storm the
picture is perfect, and the catastrophe would be more
affecting, because our sense of its reality would be
uninterrupted, were it caused only by the flash of
lightning. As Sir Joshua says, this is the first im-
pression,— an impression which is distracted by the

262

ON LANDSCAPE

appearance of Apollo on a strip of cloud. I am in-
clined to think the mistake of this introduction
originated in the desire of poor Wilson to draw atten-
tion to his neglected Art, by making it what the taste
of the times would consider classic.

Fuseli says of Wilson, " Though in effects of dewy
freshness and silent evening lights few equalled, and
fewer excelled him, his grandeur is oftener allied to
terror, bustle, and convulsion, than to calmness and
tranquillity." In the first half of this passage every
lover of Wilson will agree, while the last expresses
nothing more than an objection to his choosing
sometimes to paint storms, applied to which the
epithets of Fuseli are praise, rather than censure.

The next in chronological order of the British
school who deserves to be called a great landscape-
painter, and he well deserves it, is John Cozens. But
his works, consisting of drawings in water-colours only,
are confined to the portfolios of a few collectors, and
so little, therefore, is he known, that even some artists
of the present generation have never seen a landscape
by his hand. Neither is there much known of his
personal history ; but his Art made such an impres-
sion on Constable, that in a moment of enthusiastic
admiration he pronounced John Cozens to be ^' the
greatest genius that ever touched landscaped However
we may be inclined to deduct from such an estimate,
which may be considered as a mode of conveying a
very higli opinion rather than a deliberate verdict, we
must suppose the possession of extraordinary powers
by one who could be so characterised, even without
due reflection ; and indeed I should doubt my own

ON LANDSCAPE

263

judgment, rather than doubt the existence of great
excellence when noticed in such a manner by Con-
stable, though I were unable to perceive it myself.

"Cozens," said Constable, "is all poetry." But it
is poetry that wins gently and imperceptibly. So
modest and unobtrusive are the beauties of his draw-
ings, that you might pass them without notice, for the
painter himself never says " Look at this or that," he
trusts implicitly to your own taste and feeling ; and
his works are full of half-concealed beauties, such as
Nature herself shows but coyly, and these are often
the most fleeting appearances of light. Not that his
style is without emphasis, for then it would be insipid,
which it never is, nor ever in the least commonplace.
Constable's great admiration of him breaks out in
many passages in his letters. At one time he speaks
of drawings by Cozens keeping him cheerful; and
again he says, " In the room where I am writing there
are hanging up two beautiful small drawings by
Cozens ; one a wood, close and very solemn, the
other a view from Vesuvius, looking over Portici,
very lovely."

This exquisite artist had an eye equally adapted to
the grandeur, the elegance, and the simplicity, of
Nature; but he loved best not her most gorgeous
language, but her gentlest, her most silent eloquence.
The accompanying beautiful engraving will speak
for itself. It is, I believe, the first ever made from
him, and I much regret it could not be on a larger
scale.

He exhibited but once only at the Academy, in 1776,
" A Landscape, with Hannibal in his March over the

264

6>7V LANDSCAPE

Alps, showing to his Army the fertile Plains of Italy."
This, I have heard, was an oil picture, and so fine that
Turner spoke of it as a work from which he learned
more than from anything he had then seen.

Cozens travelled in Italy with a gentleman who kept
him in constant employment ; hence most of his sub-
jects are Italian, but I have seen some noble draw-
ings by him from Windsor Park. Sad to say, the last
years of his short life were passed in a state of mental
derangement ; and some of his works are so inferior
to his best, as to make it not improbable they were
done when his mind was giving way. In these, that
pensive tenderness, which forms the charm of his
evening scenes, sinks into cheerless melancholy.

From his surviving relations I have been favoured
with a few particulars relating to him, which I am
sure will be read with interest by all who know his
works.

His father, Alexander Cozens, was born in Russia.
He was a natural son of Peter the Great, his mother
being an English woman, whom the Czar took home
with him from Deptford, and by whom he had another
son, who became a general in the Russian service.
The emperor sent Alexander Cozens to Italy to study
painting, from whence he came to England in 1746,
where his son John was born in 1752. I have seen a
very small pen-drawing of three figures, on which is
written, "Done by J. Cozens, 1761, when nine years
old." I have also seen a book of views in Italy, drawn
in pencil, some finished with a pen, and others half
finished, in the manner of line engraving, in which
is pasted the following memorandum : — " Alexander

ON LANDSCAPE

265

Cozens, in London, author of these drawings, lost
them, and many more, in Germany, by their dropping
from his saddle when he was riding on his way from
Rome to England, in the year 1746. John Cozens,
his son, being at Florence in the year 1776, purchased
them. When he returned to London in the year
1779, delivered the drawings to his father."

There is much of elegance, and feeling of the beau-
tiful forms of Nature, in these drawings of Alexander
Cozens. He practised as a teacher of figures as well
as of landscape, and published a drawing-book of the
figure engraved by Bartolozzi. I have seen a miniature
of John Cozens, in which he appears a beautiful boy of
fifteen or sixteen, of a fair complexion, and with a
quantity of light hair falling in curls over his shoulders,
and also a portrait of him by Pine, of the size of life,
and apparently when he was about thirty yearns old ;
a handsome, thoughtful, pale face, certainly bearing a
resemblance to the Emperor Alexander, as he looked
when I saw him in England. The death of John Cozens
is stated in Bryan's Dictionary as occurring in 1799,
but by Constable, I know not on what authority, in
1796.

Bryan says of him, that " he produced some draw-
ings of extraordinary merit, executed in a style which
was afterwards adopted and improved by the in-
genious Mr. Girtin." And this leads us to the next
great landscape-painter of our school. The style of
Thomas Girtin is not, however, an improvement, for
there could be none on Cozens, when at his best;
but it may be called a style of more equally sustained
excellence, as the short life of Girtin was exempt

266

ON LANDSCAPE

from the malady that clouded the closing years of
Cozens.

Sobered tints of exquisite truth, and broad chiaro-
scuro, are the prevailing characteristics of Girtin.
However he may differ from Cozens, he loved, like
him, the repose of Nature j and with this feeling he
painted many of the cathedrals of England in solemn
evening effects, and occasionally in the still sunshine
of noon. In the year before his death, he sketched
twenty views in Paris, in a style of great elegance,
breadth, and simplicity, which he etched himself, and
the plates were finished in Aqua-tint by other artists.
He painted a panorama of London, and it is to be
lamented that any portion of so valuable and brief a
life should have been wasted on a work the enjoy-
ment of which was so transient. His constitution
was extremely delicate, and he died in 1802, of pul-
monary consumption, at the age of twenty -seven.
His devotion to Art was extreme, and he continued
to draw till within a few days of his death, though he
was so debilitated that he could scarcely hold his
pencil ; and it is marvellous that in so short an exist-
ence, and with so feeble a constitution, he should
have achieved so much. The truth and taste with
which he coloured are not more remarkable than the
facility of his handling. My friend, Mr. F. C. Lewis,
who often saw him at work, speaks of the "sword
play of his pencil " as something wonderful ; and,
indeed, every drawing by him, with which I am
acquainted, bears evidence of this. He is described
by all who remember him, as a youth of a noble,
generous, unselfish nature, with little consciousness of

ON LANDSCAPE

267

his own great merit. "He was careful," it is said,
" in making his drawings, but careless of them when
made." The engraving here introduced is from one
of exceeding beauty, probably the result of a visit he
is known to have paid to the lakes of Scotland.
Engravings from Cozens and Girtin are given because
they are, of all the eminent landscape-painters of the
' last age, the least known. The two I have next to
speak of, the two greatest of the first half of the
present century, do not require such illustrations.

Turner began with water-colours ; a mode of paint-
ing which he practised at later periods of his life with
wonderful power. In his earliest works a resemblance
may be noticed to Cozens (to whom he always acknow-
ledged great obligations), and still more to Girtin, but
with inferior power to either. Contemporary with
both, and of about the same age with Girtin, had
Turner died as young, his name would only have
survived as that of a second-rate painter. His genius
was of later development, and first appeared in those
grand, classic, and marine subjects which he painted
in the early part of the century. The sea-pieces
were his own ] the others were made up from various
sources in Art, and though noble works, yet not
generally those on which his fame will ultimately
rest. His Snowstorm in the Alps, however, with
Hannibal and his Army, would alone justify the
highest praises of his friends, and his "Ulysses,"
painted at a much later period, is a poem of match-
less splendour and beauty. Among the great multi-
tude of his conceptions, there may be doubtless other
classical subjects equal to those direct from Nature,

268

ON LANDSCAPE

but they are exceptions to the rule by which he will
be judged.

I was equally delighted and surprised when I heard
that a very young man had come forward, with extra-
ordinary ability, and knowledge and love of Nature,
as the champion of Turner, at a time when (except-
ing by painters) his transcendent powers were little
felt or understood. But I own I was disappointed
when I read Mr. Ruskin's Modern Painters," at
one of the modes he adopted in the vindication of
the great artist's just claim to admiration.

There is little enough of excellence in the world,
and its appreciation is always in danger from the
obtrusion of clever mediocrity, and that direction of
criticism, with whatever ability it is conducted, is un-
fortunate, that tends to obscure any of the true lights
in Art, in order that one great luminary may shine
the more brilliantly. I think, therefore, it was equally
unnecessary and unsafe to the reputation of Turner
to assume that he had fewer faults than other great
painters, and to contrast his beauties with the faults,
often indeed imaginary, of Claude, the Poussins,
Cuyp, or Canaletti; unnecessary, because his excel-
lences are of so high an order, that his greatest
admirers may fearlessly acknowledge all the defects
with which he may be charged ; and unsafe, because
such a system of comparison might be more easily
turned against him than against any painter that ever
lived; for there never lived one in whose works
greater absurdities or a larger number of impossible
effects might be pointed out. Then, again, the
assumption that other great painters are inferior to

ON LANDSCAPE

269

him because they have not done the same beautiful
things, is unfair. Mr. Ruskin describes in his own
vivid manner four or five skies by Turner, and at the
close of every such eloquent passage, asks trium-
phantly, '^Has Claude given thisV^ Now it would
be quite as easy to select from the works either of
Claude, the Poussins, of Wilson, of Cuyp, of Ruys-
dael, and even of Canaletti, passages of peculiar
beauty, and to ask, with as little chance of an affir-
mative reply, ''^ Has Ttcrner given thisV^

I have said that the faults Mr. Ruskin finds in the
old masters are often imaginary ; and in proof of this,
let us examine his remarks on the picture in the Na-
tional Gallery, by Nicolo Poussin, called "Phocian."
Mr. Ruskin says, "The first idea we receive from
this picture is, that it is evening, and all the light
coming from the horizon. Not so; it is full noon,
the light coming steep from the left, as is shown by
the shadow of the stick on the right-hand pedestal \
for if the sun were not very high, that shadow could
not lose itself half-way down, and if it were not
lateral, the shadow would slope, instead of being
vertical." Now, the fact is, that if the sun were very
high, the shadow of the stick would be continued
instead of losing itself, and the effect in the picture
is in reahty in accordance with the more softened
light of the sun when near the horizon, while the
shadow of the man's head near the stick is placed
exactly where an evening sun would cast it. It is
true these shadows are thrown laterally into the pic-
ture; but this is quite consistent with as much of
warm light as Poussin has shown in the horizon, and

270

ON LANDSCAPE

the contradiction of effects imagined by Mr. Ruskin
has no existence ; while, were it worth while to look
for blunders in Turner, we might notice that palpable
one in the " Dido building Carthage,'' of a shadow
from a beam of wood projecting from the brick wall
on the extreme left of the spectator, in a direction
which can only come from a sun much higher than
that in the picture. Another instance of the detec-
tion of a supposed falsehood by Mr. Ruskin, in a
great painter, but which in fact is a truth, occurs in
his description of Canaletti's manner of treating
water. After describing, with much severity, the
ripples in the open part of a canal, he says (and in
the way of censure), that, " three hundred yards away,
all the houses are reflected as clear and as sharp as
in a quiet lake." And most assuredly they are, be-
cause Canaletti painted what he saw, and the water
as it approached the houses, being sheltered by them
from the breeze that occasions the ripple in the
middle of the canal, was there as calm as "a quiet
lake." The reader will see a fine example of such
treatment in the large Canaletti in the National Gal-
lery. Mr. Ruskin is right in his censure of the man-
ner, as too mechanical, in which the ripples are painted
by Canaletti, a censure that applies to his execution
generally; still the effect in Nature he meant to
express is given, and his colour is always relatively
true and well selected, though in a subdued scale;
and however below Turner, Canaletti cannot be
spared from the list of great painters ; and in proof
that Turner is at least as vulnerable, I would notice
that, among the impossibilities in his pictures, we

ON LANDSCAPE

271

often find reflections on the uneven surfaces of large
waves exactly perpendicular to the object reflected,
and as they could only be seen on calm water.

Mr. Ruskin, I know, will agree with me in con-
sidering it unfortunate for Turner that his picture of
" Dido building Carthage " is placed in the National
Gallery beside Claude's " Embarkation of the Queen
of Sheba ; " for his notice of the two pictures of Car-
thage is among the few instances in which he admits
a fault in Turner. "The foreground," he says, "of
the 'Building of Carthage,' and the greater part of
the architecture of the Fall, are equally heavy and
evidently paint, if we compare them with genuine
passages of Claude's sunshine." For my own part,
when I look at the "Building of Carthage" I feel as
if I were in a theatre, decorated with the most splen-
did of drop-scenes ; but when I stand before Claude's
"Embarkation" I am in the open air enjoying the
sea-breeze, and listening to the plash of the waves on
the beach. Yet this does not convince me that
Claude was a greater man than Turner, because it is
a comparison of one of the most artificial pictures of
the English painter, with one of the most natural
works of the Frenchman ; and I only make the com-
parison to show that Claude is not to be deposed, to
place on his throne one who wants it not, because he
has raised himself to a throne, unoccupied before, and
from which his sway is extended over a wider dominion,
though, for that very reason, with less absolute power
in every corner of it. Claude could not paint a storm.
Turner's sea-storms are the finest ever painted ; and
though Claude is best seen in tranquil sunshine, yet

272

ON LANDSCAPE

there are many beautiful and brilliant mid-day appear-
ances, of perfect stillness, that were never seen on
canvas till Turner gave them with a power preclud-
ing all imitation; and I can well believe, with Mr.
Ruskin, in the truth of his Venetian scenes, those
splendid palaces and churches under the brightest
skies, and reflected in the clearest waters. Others
may have painted with more truth many of the lesser
facts, but he alone has given the great facts that are
the prevailing associations with Venice. I have never
seen Switzerland ; but I have known those who have
gone there sceptics with respect to Turner's excel-
lence, and returned worshippers ; and I know enough
of lake scenery to feel how great a painter he is of
mountains and lakes, with all their changes of sun-
shine, cloud, and mist. Such are the things which
are the real praise of this wonderful painter of light,
and space, and air.

I have read with attention Mr. Ruskin's remarks
on Turner's trees and foliage, but without being con-
vinced that he was so great a painter of these as of
other features of Nature. With the exception of here
and there a willow, and, in his Italian views, the
frequent pine and cypress, I look in vain for a specific
discrimination in his trees, or in the vegetation of
his foregrounds, in which there is little that is
English. I cannot remember an oak, an elm, an ash,
or a beech, in any picture by him (only a fine de-
cayed oak in one of his vignettes), nor do I remem-
ber anything much like the beauty of an English
hedge. Neither has he expressed the deep fresh
verdure of his own country; and hence he is the

J

ON LANDSCAPE ' 373

most unfaithful (among great painters) to the essential
and most beautiful characteristics of English midland
scenery. Constable said to me, "Did you ever see a
picture by Turner, and not wish to possess it?" I
forget the reply, but I might have named his' view
from the terrace at Richmond; from which, with the
exception of the general composition, every beauty of
that noble landscape is left out. I remember, in a
summer of unusual drought, when the trees became
embrowned and the grass was burnt up, that the
colour of the woods and meadows seen from Rich-
mond approached to that of Turner's picture; but I
never remember to have met with trees of such forms
as those which he has placed in its foreground, in any
part of the world; nor am I acquainted, in Nature
with those trees often to be seen in his middle dis-
tances, which Mr. Ruskin accurately describes as
shaped like pears with the stem downwards.

But there is no end to this kind of criticism, either
of Turner or of any other great painter; and though
there may be instruction in it, it seems ungracious
towards those who have done so much to delight us •
and indeed even all the faults that the most micro-
scopic dissection can detect in the few painters who
stand in the highest rank are not condemnatory; for
It IS easy to imagine a style without one of their faults,
and with no flagrant violation of the truth of Nature'
which yet may be insipid, commonplace, and value-
less, compared with theirs. I remember a poet, now
remembered by nobody, or rather a writer of verse,
who placed himself higher than Lord Byron, because'
as he said (and truly), he never wrote an immoral line,

274

ON LANDSCAPE

and filled his pages with recommendations of every-
thing virtuous.

There is a place among our painters which Turner
left unoccupied, and which neither Wilson, Gains-
borough, Cozens, nor Girtin, so completely filled as
John Constable. He was the most genuine painter
of English cultivated scenery, leaving untouched its
mountains and lakes. Having characterised his pecu-
liar powers, as well as I could, when I printed a col-
lection of his letters, I shall now confine myself to a
notice of Mr. Ruskin's remarks on him. In the pre-
face to "Modern Painters," that gentleman says,
"The feelings of Constable with respect to his art
might be almost a model for the young student, were
it not that they err a little on the other side,^ and are
perhaps in need of chastening and guiding from the
works of his fellow-men. We should use pictures, not
as authorities, but as comments on Nature, just as we
use divines, not as authorities, but as comments on
the Bible. Constable, in his dread of saint-worship,
deprives himself of much instruction from the Scripture
to which he holds, because he will not accept aid in
reading it from the learning of other men."

How far this charge is just, the reader will deter-
mine when he is informed that Constable's first-known
attempts in Art were pen-and-ink copies of the prints
from Raphael's Cartoons; his next, copies of the
etchings of Ruysdael ; and that, later in life and occa-
sionally towards the close of it, he made careful copies
of Wilson, of Ruysdael, Rubens, Teniers, and Claude ;

1 The quotation is from a note to a passage of which the
genuine love of Nature by English artists is the subject.

ON LANDSCAPE

275

copies, some of which might pass for the originals.
His walls also were covered with pictures, drawings,
and prints, of the great landscape and other painters,
and he venerated styles in Art that have been vene-
rated by all the best artists, but of which Mr. Ruskin
occasionally speaks with that ridicule which he so well
knows how to use.

In another page of "Modern Painters," I read
that " Unteachableness seems to have been a main
feature of his " (Constable's) " character, and there is
a corresponding want of veneration in the way he
approaches Nature herself." The first of these charges,
I think, has been sufficiently answered ; and to the
second I will oppose a quotation from one of Con-
stable's lectures, and ask if the words are those of a
man wanting in veneration of Nature. "The land-
scape-painter," he says, "must walk in the fields with
an humble mind. No arrogant man was ever per-
mitted to see Nature in all her beauty. If I may be
allowed to use a very solemn quotation, I would say
most emphatically to the student, * Remember now
thy Creator in the days of thy youth.' "

" His early education and associations," continues
Mr. Ruskin, " were also against him — they induced a
morbid preference of subjects of a low order." Con-
stable's education was among farmers and millers, and
I should say, therefore, not unfavourable to a painter
of pastoral landscape; and whether his subjects are
to be ranked as of a low order, or not, is a question
of taste. The materials of which his landscapes are
chiefly composed are thus enumerated by himself, in
his description of "the scenes of his boyhood," which

276

ON LANDSCAPE

he was fond of saying "made him a painter." " Gentle
declivities, luxuriant meadow flats, sprinkled with
flocks and herds, well cultivated uplands, with nume-
rous scattered villages and churches, with farms and
picturesque cottages."

Another objection to his Art, that requires notice,
is that Mr. Ruskin has "never seen any work of his
in which there are any signs of his being able to
draw ; " and from this sentence I can only conclude
that Mr. Ruskin has either never seen a genuine pic-
ture by Constable, and that his impression is derived
from the numerous forgeries of his works in circula-
tion, or that he has seen pictures by him, without
looking at them, which often happens where we are not
interested. Even in those late works in which Con-
stable used the palette-knife to excess, and in which,
as was often the case with Turner, his mind was more
intent on colour and effect than on form, there are
always evidences of his power of accurate drawing ;
and I may add that his studies of clouds, of trees, of
churches, mills, etc., show him to be as perfect a mas-
ter of drawing as he was of colour and chiaroscuro.

Having mentioned his use of the palette-knife, I
should state that he was himself aware he had done
so to an excess. In a note to me, he said, " I have
laid the palette-knife down, but not until I had cut
my own throat with it." The truth is, that the pictures
in which he most used this instrument, are those of
which there are the greatest number of forgeries. A
practised eye will, however, generally detect these, as,
in such imitations, one colour is smeared over another
so as to have the muddled and filthy look of the rags

ON LANDSCAPE

277

with which a painter cleans his palette; while the
dashes of colour from Constable's knife have the look
of gems, and the more they are magnified the more
brilliant they appear. His " Waterloo Bridge/' of all
his large pictures the one in which it was most used,
seems painted with liquid gold and silver. The
palette-knife appears everywhere, the palette nowhere.
I must add to these remarks, that as Constable made
a sketch of the full size of every large picture he
painted, and as these sketches are complete in effect,
though not in detail, they are sometimes mistaken for
pictures, and a false notion is therefore conveyed of
his Art. It is just possible that some of these may
have given to Mr. Ruskin an impression of his want
of reverence for Nature, though, considered as a
means by which to make his pictures more perfect,
they prove the reverse.

Mr. Ruskin alludes to the often-repeated saying of
Fuseli, and to which Constable himself first gave cur-
rency, but Mr. Ruskin shows a very limited acquaint-
ance with Constable's works, when he calls his effects
"great-coat weather and nothing more." Nobody
has painted with more truth the finest English sum-
mer weather, — as in the "White Horse," the "Strat-
ford Mill," the "Hay Wain," the "Waterloo Bridge,"
and others of his large pictures ; and particularly in a
little meadow scene, of matchless beauty, and the
" Boat Building," both in the collection of Mr. Sheep-
shanks. Now none of these pictures have much of
what are called warm colours ; but they express the
warmth of summer so truly that in some of them (the
last two especially) I can fancy I see the tremulous

278

ON LANDSCAPE

vibration of the heated air near the ground. Con-
stable never fell into the common mistake by which
even Turner appears to have been influenced, namely,
that what are called warm colours are essential to
convey the idea of warmth in a landscape. The
truth is, that red, orange, and yellow, are only seen in
the sky at the coolest hours of the day, and brown
and yellow tints, in the foliage of England, prevail
only in the spring and autumn. But he fearlessly
painted midsummer noon -day heat, with blues,
greens, and grays forming the predominant masses.
And he succeeded : because his sensibility of eye
directed him to the true tones and arrangements in
Nature of these colours at the season he most loved
to paint, and which he generally indicated by an elder-
tree in flower.

While speaking of the colour of Nature, I must not
omit to notice a mistake painters who theorise rather
than observe fall into, when they give a yellow tinge
to all objects in noon-day sunshine, inferring that so
it must be because the local colour of the sun is
yellow. But, in fact, excepting in the morning or
evening, white, in sunshine, is only a purer white, and
blue receives not the least tint of green ; indeed in
blue, even when lighted by the warmest setting sun,
it is not easy to detect any change.

Having quoted, with dissent, some of Mr. Ruskin's
remarks, I must in justice to that gemleman transcribe
a passage m which he speaks of the Art of Constable
as " thoroughly original, thoroughly honest, free from
affectation, manly in manner, frequently successful in
cool colour, and realising certain motives of English

ON LANDSCAPE

279

scenery with perhaps as much affection as such scenery,
unless when regarded through media of feeHng derived
from higher sources, is calculated to inspire." Con-
stable, in fact, practised more to the letter than any
of his contemporaries what Mr. Ruskin insists on,
with great spirit, in another page. "Whatever," he
says, " is to be truly great and affecting must have on
it the stamp of the native land. Not a law this, but
a necessity, from the intense hold on their country of
the affections of all truly great men. All classicality,
all middle -age patent reviving, is utterly vain and
absurd ; if we are now to do anything great, good,
awful, religious, it must be got out of our own little
island, railroads and all." To this I heartily subscribe,
and I wish also to be understood as fully sensible of the
estimate of the high mission of Art which everywhere
appears in the pages of a critic from whom I have
received much instruction; and though I cannot
agree with Mr. Ruskin in all things, I know no
modern writer from whom so many maxims, valuable
in matters of taste, and often in higher things, may be
quoted.

It is but a very small portion of the world's surface
that has been cultivated, so to speak, by the landscape-
painter, because, indeed, all Art has been confined
within a very narrow geographical limit. The few
transcripts of scenery that have been brought to
Europe from distant lands are from the hands of
amateurs or inferior painters, who have been unable
to express the truth of atmosphere, the greatest
difficulty, as it is the most important of all the
requisites of landscape Art, for without it we caD

28o

ON LANDSCAPE

never transport ourselves in imagination to the climes
represented. Humboldt dwells eloquently on the
magnificence of tropical landscape; but unless a
Turner could visit the scenes he describes, and
scarcely then, no European could receive anything
like an impression of their splendour. The time
may come when such scenery shall be truly painted,
but this will not be till civilisation and genuine Art
are established in the midst of it, and even then a
thorough appreciation of its beauties will only dwell
with those who are native to it.

SECTION XVI
On Portrait

As often as I hear the annual protest against the
preponderance of portraiture in the Academy,^ I am
inclined to say that the interest of the Exhibition
can only be affected by the quality and not by the
quantity of such Art ; for I never saw so delightful a
display of pictures as the assemblage of the works of
Reynolds, in 1813, at the British Gallery; nearly all
being portraits. Such Art as his requires indeed, the
highest powers of mind, hand, and eye ; and I do not
believe that when Raphael or Titian occasionally
quitted History for Portrait, it occurred to them that
they were descending to a lower sphere ; and I am
sure they did not find it easier to satisfy themselves.
Art was not then classed as it now is. The great
masters considered themselves as painters, not of this

1 When the Exhibition is condemned on account of the
quantity of portrait, it is forgotten that if the painters of in-
different works of this class had employed themselves on
subjects from poetry or history, or on landscape, the interest
would not be greater. When bad portraits are better placed
than good pictures of other classes, it is a just cause of com-
plaint ; and when indifferent pictures of other classes take the
precedence of good portrait, the complaint is equally just.

282

ON PORTRAIT

or that, but of everything; and as Poussin said of
himself, they "neglected nothing."

There has never existed a great painter of History
or Poetry who has not been great in portrait. Even
Michael Angelo is no exception. There may not
remain any painted portraits of known persons by his
hand, but there are sculptured portraits by him, and
it is impossible to look even at the engravings of the
Prophets and Sibyls, without seeing that they are
from a hand practised in portrait — a hand, too, that
had acquired its power by the practice of literal
exactness. "Fuseli distinguishes the styles — epic,
dramatic, and historic — beautifully," says Mr. Haydon.
But I think, as I do of such distinctions generally,
that these are entirely imaginary ; and that the style
of Michael Angelo is distinguished, as are all others,
by the peculiar mind of the artist only, Haydon
adds that, "the same instruments are used in all
styles, men and women ; and no two men or women
were ever the same in form, feature, or proportion.
After Fuseli has said, ' the detail of character is not
consistent with the epic,' he goes on to show the
great difference of character between each Prophet,
as decided as any character chosen by Raphael in
any of his more essentially dramatic works. ' Nor are
the Sibyls,' continues Fuseli, 'those female oracles,
less expressive or less individually marked.' " Thus,
though Haydon was unwilling to abandon the classi-
fications of Fuseli, the contradiction involved in them
did not escape him.

There cannot be a doubt that Michael Angelo, had
he devoted himself to portrait only, would have been

ON PORTRAIT

283

a superlative portrait-painter; for in his works we
find everything in perfection that portrait requires—
dignity, the expression of character, the highest per-
ception of beauty, in man, woman, and child; and
not only in the unfinished marble that adorns our
Academy library, but in the smaller compartments of
the Sistine ceiling, the most natural and familiar

A GROUP — BY MICHAEL ANGELO.

domestic incidents treated in the most graceful
manner. It is right this should be remembered,
because painters (as they fancy themselves) of High
Art, who really have not the talents portrait requires,
must not be allowed to class themselves with Michael

284

ON PORTRAIT

Angelo, as long as they cannot do what he, in perfec-
tion, could do.

Conspicuous as he stands among great portrait-
painters, Vandyke is not first of the first. The
attitudes of his single figures are often formal and
unmeaning ; and his groups, however finely connected
by composition, are seldom connected by sentiment.
Fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters, stand or sit
beside each other, as they stood or sat in his room,
for the mere purpose of being painted; and it is
therefore the nicely-discriminated individual character
of every head, the freshness and delicacy of his
colour, and the fine treatment of his masses, that
have placed him high among portrait-painters. The
Countess of Bedford at Petworth, his Snyders at
Castle Howard, his whole-lengths at Warwick and at
Windsor, the noble equestrian picture at Blenheim, of
Charles I., with its magnificent landscape background,
and the whole-length of Charles in the Louvre, are
among the masterpieces of Vandyke ; but he has
nowhere shown such dramatic powers as are displayed
by Velasquez, in his portrait picture of ''The Sur-
render of Breda."

The governor of the town is presenting its keys to
the Marquis Spinola, who (hat in hand) neither takes
them, nor allows his late antagonist to kneel. But,
laying his hand gently on his shoulder, he seems to
say, " Fortune has favoured me, but our cases might
have been reversed." To paint such an act of gener-
ous courtesy was worthy of a contemporary of Cer-
vantes. It is not, however, in the choice of the sub-
ject, but in the manner in which he has brought the

ON PORTRAIT

285

scene before our eyes, that the genius and mind of
Velasquez are shown. The cordial unaffected bear-
ing of the conqueror could only have been repre-
sented by as thorough a gentleman as himself. I know
this picture but from copies. Mr. Ford says of the
original, "Never were knights, soldiers, or national
character better painted, or the heavy Fleming, the
intellectual Italian, and the proud Spaniard, more
nicely marked, even to their boots and breeches ; the
lances of the guards actually vibrate. Observe the
contrast of the light-blue delicate page, with the dark,
iron-clad General, Spinola, who, ' the model of a high-
bred generous warrior, is consoling a gallant but
vanquished enemy." ^

Another great portrait picture, the conception of
which is equally dramatic and original, is at Windsor
Castle. The Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and the
Prince of Spain, mounted on chargers, are directing
an assault in the battle of Nortlingen. The conven-
tional manner, sanctioned indeed by great painters, of
representing commanders of armies, whether mounted
or on foot, quietly looking out of the picture, while
the battle rages behind them, is here set aside. The
generals are riding into the scene of action ; and yet
their attitudes are so contrived as sufficiently to show
their features. Nearer to the spectator are half-

1 Of Spinola, Mr. Ford adds: — " He was another of those
many foreigners who, having borne the war-brunt and gained
victories for Spain, have been rewarded with ingratitude. He
took Breda, June 2, 1652, and died five years afterwards broken-
hearted, exclaiming, * They have robbed me of honour ! ' Velas-
quez has introduced his own noble head into this picture, which
is placed in the corner with a plumed hat."

286

ON PORTRAIT

length figures, the end of a long line of steel-clad
infantry, diminishing in perspective up a hill to the
fortress they are storming. All is action ; and, though
we are only shown the generals and the common
soldiers, yet, as the horses of the former are in pro-
file, and have just come into the picture, we may
imagine a train of attendant officers about to appear ;
and though portrait was the first object of Rubens,
the picture is a noble representation of a battle. The
conception, as regards the foot soldiers, has been imi-
tated, though differently applied, by Opie ; and prob-
ably Raphael's composition in the Vatican, repre-
senting David gazing at Bathsheba, while the troops
of Uriah pass below him, suggested it to Rubens.

The pendant to this picture is the group of Sir
Balthasar Gerbier, his wife, and children ; which Dr.
Waagen inchnes to attribute to Vandyke. But the
arrangement and dramatic connection of the figures
are entirely free from the formality of Vandyke ; and a
comparison of this fine composition with Vandyke's
" Children of Charles I." at Windsor, his " Pembroke
Family" at Wilton, his ^'Earl and Countess of
Derby" belonging to Lord Clarendon, or *'The
Nassau Family" at Penshanger, will show that it
is by Rubens.

Perhaps the noblest group of portraits ever painted,
for it is considered the greatest work of its class by
Titian, is that of the male part of the family of Luigi
Cornaro. The fine old man, whose life by an extra-
ordinary system of temperance was protracted to a
hundred years, kneels before an altar in the open air,
followed by his son-in-law and grandchildren, except

ON PORTRAIT

287

the three youngest, who are sitting on the steps of the
altar playing with a little dog, an incident like some
I have noticed in the works of Raphael. The char-
acteristic arrangement of the figures, the noble sim-
phcity of the Hues, and the truth and power of the
colour, unite in placing this picture on the summit
of Art. There is no apparent sacrifice of detail, no
trick, that we can discover, to give supremacy to the
heads, which yet rivet our attention at the first glance,
and to which we return again and again, impressed by
the thought and mind in the countenances of the
elder personages, and charmed with the youthful in-
nocence of the boys. I have seen people, ignorant
of the principles of Art, and caring little about pic-
tures, stand before this one in astonishment, and I
have heard them express themselves in a way which
proved that little of its excellence was lost on them.
Fortunately for England, it belongs to His Grace the
Duke of Northumberland.^

There was a time when kings, warriors, and other
eminent persons, were painted, almost as a matter of
course, in devotional attitudes. It was, in fact, a
fashion, and was continued to a later date than the
close of Titian's life. But it is not so much what the
individual painted may be doing, as its consistency
with his whole life, and the look and manner given
him by the painter, which interests or offends us.
The piety of a kneeling hero may be ostentatious ; or

1 Barry speaks of it as having been ruined by a picture-
cleaner. But he was wholly mistaken ; no picture of Titian is
in a finer condition, and it would be fortunate if all were so well
preserved.

288

ON PORTRAIT

we might happen to know that devotion was all the
religion he practised, and that he was lifting to Heaven
hands that had been steeped, and were again to be
steeped, in innocent blood. Sir Thomas More was
several times painted by Holbein, yet never, that I
recollect, in an attitude of devotion, or accompanied
by any symbol of that religion which was the rule of
his life ; and what would the memory of More, or the
genius of Holbein, have gained had he so painted
him? Raphael flattered Leo the Tenth, as he was
directed, by introducing him, in the " Attila," as Leo
the First. But when he was to paint a more charac-
teristic portrait of the Pope, he represented only the
sovereign and the dilettante. Leo is examining with
a glass a splendidly-illuminated manuscript. He sits
in a chair of state, attended, not by saints, but by
two princes of the church ; and the portrait is, as all
portraits should be, biographical. Even in copies
(from which only I know it), I fancy I see faint indica-
tions of a love of fun, so characteristic of a Pontiff
who delighted in a practical joke.

The admirers of devotional portrait object to the
more modern custom of indicating the deeds of the
person represented, as savouring of vanity ; forgetting
that acts of devotion are deeds, and, as far as attitude
and expression have to do with devotion, the easiest
of all deeds ; and, when consisting in these alone, the
most criminal of all vanities. The only portrait of
that admirable woman, Margaret Tudor, represents
her in a religious habit, with her hands joined in
prayer, and she could not have been so characteristic-
ally handed down to us in any other dress or atti-

ON PORTRAIT

289

tude. Neither could Sir Joshua's portrait of General
Eliott be more happily conceived than it is. The
key of the fortress he is defending is held firmly in
his hand. But commanding as are the air and atti-
tude, they have nothing of the vanity of bravado ;
indeed, if what is most honourable to the man should
not be painted, the world would not have possessed
the noble conception of Velasquez that has been
described.

What may be called masquerading or fancy ball
portrait is seldom happy; and though we do not
object to Sir Joshua's " Kitty Fisher as Cleopatra," or
" Emily Bertie as Thais," yet, as in such cases, let us
be sure the assumed character accords with the real
one. Sir Thomas Lawrence made a sketch of George
the Fourth in the armour of the Black Prince, but
had the good sense not to carry the matter farther
than a sketch.

Are portrait-painters, it may be asked, to paint the
vices of their sitters? Assuredly, if these vices
exhibit themselves in the countenance. And Fuseli
praises Titian for expressing some of the most odious
individual characteristics, in portraits that he selects as
works of the highest order.

Allan Cunningham accuses Reynolds of flattery,
and I apprehend Sir Joshua was just as much of a
flatterer as Titian. With a vulgar head before him,
he would not, or rather could not, make a vulgar
picture. But I do not believe that he would have
given to Colonel Charteris "an aspect worthy a
President of the Society for the Suppression of
Vice," unless, which is not impossible, he had such

u

290

ON PORTRAIT

an aspect. In his whole-length of the Duke of
Orleans, the debauchee was as apparent as the
Prince.-^

No man can be a good portrait-painter who is not
a good physiognomist. I do not mean that he should
know Lavater by heart, or that he must believe in all
that phrenology assumes. But he must be, what all
of us are in some degree, a judge of character by
the signs exhibited in the face. A few of the broad
distinctions of physiognomy depend on the forms of
the features, but all its nicer shades have far more
to do with expression ; and in this, indeed, the real
character is often seen where the conformation of the
features seems to contradict it. Socrates had the
face and figure of a Silenus, but the great mind of the
philosopher must have been visible, through the dis-
guise, to all who could read expression. There are
some general and well-known rules for the determina-
tion of physiognomical character, as far as it has to do
with the shapes of the features ; the aquiline nose
and eye, for instance, belong to the heroic class,
thick lips to the sensual, and thin to the selfish ; yet
all these may be liable to many exceptions ; the first
certainly are, for Nelson, Wolfe, Turenne, and many
other heroes will occur to our recollection who had
nothing of the eagle physiognomy. It is natural to
associate beauty with goodness, and ugliness with
wickedness ; and children generally do this. But an
acquaintance with the world soon shows us that bad

1 This very fine picture, which I remember at the British
Gallery in 1 81 3, was destroyed by fire. A large engraving, and
some good copies of it, exist.

ON PORTRAIT

291

and selfish hearts may be concealed under the
handsomest features, and the highest virtues hidden
under the homeliest; and that goodness may even
consist with conformations of face absolutely ugly.
We then begin to look for the character in the expres-
sion rather than in the forms of the features, and to
distinguish assumed expressions from natural ones ;
and so we go on, and, as we grow older, become
better physiognomists, though we never arrive at that
certainty of judgment which seems not to be in-
tended we ever should.

The best portrait -painters, though they may not
have penetrated through the mask to all beneath it,
have, by the fidelity of their Art, given resemblances
that sometimes correct, and sometimes confirm, the
verdicts of historians. Who can look at Vandyke's
three heads, ^ painted to enable Bernini to make a
bust, and believe all that has been said against Charles
I. ? Or who can look at Holbein's portraits of Henry
Vin., and doubt the worst that has been said of his
selfish cruelty ?

Among the many excellences of Holbein, his treat-
ment of the hands is not the least ; and it is evident
that in his whole-lengths of Henry, they are portraits,
and so are the legs, and that the king stood for the
entire figure in that characteristic, but by no means
graceful attitude, in which he set the fashion to his
courtiers. We feel that we could swear to the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, of such
portraits.

Among the pictures at Hampton Court attributed
^ At Windsor Castle, and inimitably engraved by Sharp.

292

ON PORTRAIT

to Holbein, few can be relied on as genuine. I can^
not believe that those historical curiosities, *^The
Embarkation of Henry VIH. from Dover,'' "The
Field of the Cloth of Gold," "The Meeting of Henry
and Maximilian," or "The Battle of the Spurs," are
his works ; neither do I believe he painted the pic-
ture that includes Henry, Jane Seymour, Prince
Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, nor the life-sized
whole-length of "The Earl of Surrey." According
to the general custom of attributing the portraits of
every age to the greatest master of that age, Holbein
is made answerable for these and many others, greatly
inferior to the picture, certainly by him, belonging
to the Surgeon -Barbers' Company; a work rivalling
Titian in its colour, and in the finely-marked indi-
vidual character of the heads. It is remarkable that,
although it has hung in the very heart of London ^
for more than three hundred years, it has not in the
least suffered from smoke ; and if it has ever been
cleaned, it has sustained no injury from the process.^
Dr. Waagen urges the importance of so fine a picture
being removed to the National Gallery, and thinks
an arrangement might be made to that purpose be-
tween the Government and the company that pos-
sesses it; " a consummation devoutly to be wished."
There is not a Holbein in the National Gallery,

1 The Surgeon-Barbers' Hall escaped the great fire.

" I believe that when pictures in the National Gallery have
required cleaning, the necessity has arisen from the deepening of
yellow varnishes, and those other obscurations of which I have
already spoken, rather than from the smoke of London, which
may be easily washed off without removing the original varnish.

ON PORTRAIT

293

While speaking of this great painter, I must not
omit to notice the interest given to his picture of the
family of Sir Thomas More, by making the back-
ground an exact representation of an apartment in
More's house. This example might effect a great
improvement in portrait, and it would often be found
easier to the painter (as well as far more agreeable),
to copy realities, than to weary himself with ineffectual
attempts to make the eternal pillar and curtain, or
the conventional sky and tree, look as well as they
do in the backgrounds of Reynolds and Gainsborough.

The question relating to the degree in which per-
sonal defects are to be marked must, in every case,
be settled by the taste of the painter. Reynolds has
not only shown that Baretti was near-sighted, but he
has made that defect as much the subject of the
picture as the sitter himself, and Baretti's absorption
in his book strongly marks the literary man. But
near-sightedness is not a deformity, and there can be
no doubt that Reynolds abated whatever of malfor-
mation he might not for the sake of individuality
think it right to exclude, and that he also invariably
softened harshness of feature or expression, and
diminished positive ugliness, as far as he could do
so without losing character. Chantrey did the same ;
but Lawrence softened harshness so much as often to
lose character. The portraits of neither of the three
could ever be called ridiculously like, an expression
sometimes used in the way of compliment, but in
reality pointing exactly to what a portrait should not
be ; and Wilkie felt this so much that he went to the
other extreme, and even deviated into unlikeness in

294

ON PORTRAIT

his portraits, from the dread of that un-ideal mode of
representation which excites us to laugh.

We undervalue that which costs us least effort, and
West, while engaged on a small picture of his own
family, little thought how much it would surpass in
interest many of his more ambitious works. Its sub-
ject is the first visit of his father and elder brother, to
his young wife, after the birth of her second child.
They are Quakers ; and the venerable old man and
his eldest son wear their hats, according to the cus-
tom of their sect. Nothing can be more beautifully
conceived than the mother bending over the babe,
sleeping in her lap. She is wrapped in a white
dressing-gown, and her other son, a boy of six years
old, is leaning on the arm of her chair. West stands
behind his father, with his palette and brushes in his
hand, and the silence that reigns over the whole is
that of religious meditation ; which will probably end,
according to the Quaker custom, in a prayer from
the patriarch of the family. The picture is a very
small one, the engraving from it being of the same
size. It has no excellence of colour, but the masses
of light and shadow are impressive and simple, and
I know not a more original illustration of the often-
painted subject, the ages of man. Infancy, child-
hood, youth, middle life, and extreme age, are beauti-
fully brought together in the quiet chamber of the
painter's wife. Had he been employed to paint
these five ager., he would perhaps have given himself
a great deal of trouble to produce a work that would
have been classical, but, compared with this, common-
place ; while he has here succeeded in making a pic-

ON PORTRAIT

295

ture which, being intended only for himself, is for that
reason a picture for the whole world ; and if painters
could always thus put their hearts into their work,
how much would the general interest of the Art be
increased !

Among the many great lessons in portrait com-
position, by Rembrandt, are " The Night AVatch " at
Amsterdam, "The Group of Surgeons assembled
round a Corpse," in the Musee at the Hague ; and
the picture which Mr. Smith, in his "Catalogue
Raisonne," calls "Ranier Hanslo and his Mother."
A sight of the two first is well worth a journey to
Holland. The last is sometimes described as "a
woman consulting a Baptist minister," and at others,
" a woman consulting an eminent lawyer, or an emi-
nent physician." As there are large books on a table
and in the background,- and the expressions of the
heads are earnest and serious, the subject might be
either of these. I saw the picture (which belongs to
the Earl of Ashburnham) many years ago, and have
ever since been haunted with the wish to see it again.
Indeed I was about to make a day's journey for that
sole purpose, when it was sent to London for sale.^
The persons it represents are unknown, the heads of
neither are remarkable for beauty or any other inter-
est than that marked individuality that carries with it
a certainty of likeness ; and yet it is a picture that
throws down every barrier that would exclude it from
the highest class of Art; nor do I know anything
from the hand of Rembrandt in which he appears

^ Every artist who then saw it, hoped it would be secured for
the National Gallery.

296

ON PORTRAIT

greater than in this simple and unpretending work.
I remember being surprised to hear Sir Thomas Law-
rence object to its treatment, that though the man
turns towards the woman, and is speaking earnestly,
while she is listening with great attention, yet they do
not look in each other's faces. I was surprised that
he should not have noticed how frequently this
happens, in conversations on the most important sub-
jects, and oftenest, indeed, in such conversations.
Rembrandt has repeated these attitudes and expres-
sions, in the two principal personages in " The Night
Watch," with the difference only, that the figures are
walking as they converse. There is an engraving of
the " Hanslo and his Mother " by Josiah Boydell,
which, however, fails in giving the breadth of light on
the female head, the colour of which is as near to
perfection as Art ever approached.

The hands in Rembrandt's portraits, as in those of
Holbein, do everything required of them in the most
natural and expressive way. But very different are
the hands of Vandyke, which have an affected grace
adopted from Rubens, though carried farther from
Nature, and which may be traced from Rubens to
Correggio. The hands in Vandyke's portraits are
always of one type, thin and elegant, with long tapered
fingers. He was followed in these particulars by Lely
with still more of affectation, who carried a corre-
sponding mannerism into his faces, losing nearly all
individuality in that one style of beauty that was in
fashion.

A nobleman said to Lely, " How is it that you
have so great a reputation, when you know, as well

ON PORTRAIT

297

as I do, that you are no painter ? " " True, but I am
the best you have," was the answer. And so it is ;
the best artist of the age will generally, while living,
have a reputation equal to the greatest that have pre-
ceded him. Lely, however, was a painter, and of
very great merit. His colour, always pearly and
refined, is often very charming. He understood well
the treatment of landscape as background, and there
are some of his pictures which I prefer to some pic-
tures by Vandyke.

Sir Joshua Reynolds remarks that in general the
greatest portrait-painters have not copied closely the
dresses of their time. Holbein, however, took no
liberties with the doublets, hose, or mantles of the
gentlemen he painted, nor with the head -gear or
kirtles of the ladies; neither did Velasquez; and
their portraits are, therefore, curious records of
fashions, picturesque, and sometimes fantastic in
the extreme, yet always treated with admirable Art ;
and I confess I prefer those of Sir Joshua's portraits
in which he has faithfully adhered to the dress of
the sitter; which is always characteristic, and often
highly so. The manner in which Queen Elizabeth
covered herself with jewels, and the splendour
with which Raleigh decorated his person, pertain to
biography.

In some of Vandyke's portraits, no change is made
in the dress ; while in many (I believe the most), that
which is stiff and formal is loosened, and alterations
are introduced that we are only aware of when we
compare his pictures with exact representations, by
other artists, of the costume of the time. Such devia-

298

ON PORTRAIT

tions from matter of fact were carried much farther
by Lely and Kneller, particularly in their portraits of
ladies ; and the first adopted an elegant, but impos-
sible, undress, that assists the voluptuous expression
which he aimed at, either to please a dissolute Court,
or because it pleased himself ; possibly for both
reasons.

With Kneller, however, the ideal style of the dress
does not affect the prevailing character he gave to the
beauties he painted, who seem a higher order of beings
than the ladies of Lely. Among the attractions of the
latter the expression of strict virtue is by no means
conspicuous, while it would seem profane to doubt
the purity of the high-born dames of Kneller. Though,
as a painter, not to be compared to Lely, his women
seem secured from moral degradation by an ever-
present consciousness of noble birth, which sits well
on them ; and though their demeanour is as studied
as the grace of a minuet, it does not offend like
vulgar affectation. Fielding, the natural Fielding,
greatly admired the stately beauties of Kneller, at
Hampton Court, and compared Sophia Western to
one of them. Conscious that, "when unadorned,
adorned the most," they reject the aid of jewellery,
and are content with only so much assistance from
Art, as they receive from well-arranged draperies.

The great fault of Lely is the family likeness,
closer than that of sisters, which forbids our relying on
his pictures as portraits ; and this unpardonable fault
is carried even farther by Kneller, whose ladies are
all cast in one mould of feature and form, and all
alike tall to a degree rare in Nature.

ON PORTRAIT

299

Reynolds adopted something from both which he
used to advantage; but he did far more, — he re-
covered portrait from all the mannerism that had
accumulated on it, from the death of Vandyke to his
own time, and restored it to truth.

When we compare his style with that of his master,
Hudson, we are struck with its vast superiority, its
wide difference, not merely in degree, but in kind;
and in this it would appear to form an exception to
what has generally been the case — namely, that the
style of every extraordinary genius is but a great im-
provement on that of the school in which he was
reared. But it was not from Hudson, nor from his
visit to Italy, that the Art of Reynolds was formed.
The seed that was to produce fruit, so excellent and
abundant, was sown before he quitted Devonshire.
He there saw, and probably among the first pictures
he ever saw, the works of a painter wholly unknown
in the metropolis. "This painter,'' Northcote tells
us, "was William Gandy of Exeter, whom," he says,
"I cannot but consider as an early master of Rey-
nolds. He told me himself that he had seen portraits
by Gandy equal to those of Rembrandt ; one in par-
ticular of an alderman of Exeter, which is placed in
a public building in that city. I have also heard
him repeat some observations of Gandy's, which had
been mentioned to him, and that he approved of ;
one in particular was, that a picture ought to have a
richness in its texture, as if the colours had been
composed of cream or cheese, and the reverse of a
hard and husky or dry manner." Now a single
precept like this falling into an ear fitted to receive

300

ON PORTRAIT

it, is sufficient to create a style; while, upon the
inapt, all the best instruction that can be given is
wasted.

I have seen a portrait by Gandy, which I should
have mistaken for an early work of Reynolds ; and
this, with what Northcote tells us, is enough to estab-
lish, in my mind. Gaudy's claim to the honour of
being the first instructor of a great genius whom he
never saw. Gaudy's father was a pupil of Vandyke ;
and being patronised by the Duke of Ormond, and
retained in his service in Ireland, his works were as
little known in London as those of his son, who
practised only in Devonshire. Thus, while the style
of Vandyke degenerated through the hands of his
successors in the capital, till it was totally lost in the
beginning of the eighteenth century, some of its best
qualities were preserved in remote parts of the king-
dom, to lead to a splendid revival of portraiture ; so
true it is that however obscured from sight, at times,
some of the links in the chain of Art may be, still it
is a chain never wholly broken.

Nothing can be farther from my intention than to
lessen the fame of Reynolds. What I have stated
merely shows what indeed we might be certain of
without a knowledge of the facts — namely, that the
birth of his art was not miraculous. Praise enough
is still left for him ; for that which he derived from
Gandy was but the medium of his own fascinating
conceptions of Nature. "There is a charm," says
Northcote, " in his portraits, a mingled softness and
force, a grasping at the end with nothing harsh or
unpleasant in the means, that you will find nowhere

ON PORTRAIT

301

else. He may go out of fashion for a time, but you
must come back to him again, while a thousand
imitators and academic triflers are forgotten.''

In looking over prints from his works, we are
astonished at the many attitudes and incidents we
find new to Art, and yet often such as from their
very familiarity in life have been overlooked by other
painters. The three Ladies Waldegrave, one winding
silk from the hands, of another, while the third is
bending over a drawing, Mrs. Abington leaning on the
back of her chair, and Lady Fenoulhet with her
hands in a muff, for instance; and then the many
exquisitely natural groupings of mothers and children,
and of children with children ; how greatly superior
in interest are such conceptions, fresh from Nature,
to some of his inventions, — as of ladies sacrificing to
the Graces, or decorating a statue of Hymen, of
which indeed he made fine pictures (for that he
could not help), but pictures the impression of which
is comparatively languid.

In the collected works of no other portrait-painter
do we find so great a diversity of individual character
illustrated by so great a variety of natural incident,
or aided by such various and well-chosen effects of
light and shadow ; many entirely new to Art, as (for
instance) the partial shadows thrown by branches of
trees over whole-length figures. Indeed, by no other
painter, except Gainsborough, has landscape been so
beautifully or effectively brought in aid of portrait.
Vandyke generally subdues its brightness to give
supremacy to the head, and Lely and Kneller did
this still more; but Reynolds, without lessening its

302

ON PORTRAIT

power, always contrived it so as to relieve the face
most effectively.

We may learn nearly everything relating to por-
trait from Reynolds. Those deviations from the exact
correspondence of the sides of the face which are so
common in Nature are never corrected by him, as
they sometimes are by inferior artists under the notion
of improving the drawing. He felt that a marked
difference in the lines surrounding the eyes often
greatly aids the expression of the face. He took
advantage of this in painting the fixed despair of
Ugolino, no doubt finding it in the model ; and in a
very different head, his front face of Garrick, he has,
by observing the difference of the eyes, given great
archness of expression, and assisted its intelligence
without making the face less handsome.

It has been said, and I believe it, that no painter
can put more sense into a head than he possesses
himself, and it must have been rare for Reynolds to
meet with an intellect superior to his own. Had we
no other evidence, that of Goldsmith, who knew him
well, was a close observer, and no flatterer, would be
conclusive : —

" Here Reynolds is laid, and, to tell you my mind,
He has not left a wiser or better behind."

But his portraits were not always so satisfactory to
his sitters as the works of inferior painters. The
truth is, sitters are no judges of their own likenesses,
and in their immediate family circle the best judges
are not always to be found. Lord Thurlow said,
" There are two factions, the Reynolds faction and the

ON PORTRAIT

303

Romney faction. I am of the Romney faction." Now
in Romney's whole-length the Chancellor appeared a
more handsome man than in the half-length of Rey-
nolds. Romney avoided all indication of the sup-
pressed temper that was so apt to explode in violent
paroxysms, and this rendered his picture more ac-
ceptable to the original. But he missed what Rey-
nolds alone could give — that extraordinary sapience
which made Charles Fox say, " No man could be so
wise as Lord Thurlow looked."

That the portraits of Reynolds were the best of
all likenesses, I have no manner of doubt. I know
several of his pictures of children, the originals of
whom I have seen in middle and old age, and in
every instance I could discover much likeness. He
painted Lord Melbourne when a boy, and with that
genuine laugh that was so characteristic of the future
Prime Minister at every period of his life ; and no
likeness between a child and a man of sixty (an age
at which I remember Lord Melbourne) was ever more
striking. Lord Melbourne recollected that Sir Joshua
bribed him to sit, by giving him a ride on his foot,
and said, " If you behave well you shall have another
ride."

His fondness of children is recorded on all his can-
vases in which they appear. A matchless picture of
Miss Bowls, a beautiful laughing child caressing a dog,
was sold a few years ago at auction, and cheaply, at a
thousand guineas. The father and mother of the little
girl intended she should sit to Romney, who, at one
time, more than divided the town with Reynolds. Sir
George Beaumont, however, advised them to employ

304 ON PORTRAIT

Sir Joshua. ''But his pictures fade." "No matter,
take the chance ; even a faded picture by Reynolds
will be the finest thing you can have. Ask him to
dine with you ; and let him become acquainted with
her." The advice was taken ; the little girl was placed
beside Sir Joshua at the table, where he amused her
so much with tricks and stories that she thought him
the most charming man in the world, and the next
day was delighted to be taken to his house, where she
sat down with a face full of glee, the expression of
which he caught at once and never lost ; and the affair
turned out every way happily, for the picture did not
fade, and has, till now, escaped alike the inflictions of
time or of the ignorant among cleaners.

Doubts have been expressed of the sincerity of Sir
Joshua's great admiration of Michael Angelo. Had
he, on his return from Italy, undertaken to decorate a
church (supposing an opportunity) with imitations of
the Sistine ceiling, I should doubt his appreciation
of the great works that cover it. But a painter may
sincerely admire Art very different from his own ; and
I rest my belief of his full appreciation of Michael
Angelo, less on his "Tragic Muse" (Mrs. Siddons),
or his "Ugolino," both of which we may in some
degree trace among the conceptions in the Sistine
Chapel, than to that general greatness and grace of
style stamped on all his works. " Reynolds," — says
Sterne, " great and graceful as he paints ; nor could
his Art be so well characterised by any other two
words.

It has been more than once intimated that Reynolds
cared for no other artist's success. But if this were

ON PORTRAIT

305

the case, why did he take the trouble to write and
deliver his discourses ? in which he did not fail to give
all the instruction he could convey, by words, in his
own branch of the Art, as well as in those which he
considered higher. He was daily accessible to all
young artists who sought his advice, and readily lent
them the finest of his own works ; but in doing this
he always said to the portrait -painter, " It will be
better for you to study Vandyke.'' It is clear that,
though he felt his own superiority among his con-
temporaries, he had a belief that British Art was
advancing, and that he should be surpassed by future
painters ; like the belief in which Shakspeare supposes
an ideal mistress to say of himself, —

** But since he died, and poets better prove,"

for Reynolds, like all men of the loftiest minds, was
modest. Mrs. Bray, in her " Life of Stothard," says,
with great truth, of the modesty of such men, that it
"is not at all inconsistent with that strong internal
conviction, which every man of real merit possesses,
respecting his own order of capacity. He feels that
Nature has given him a stand on higher ground than
most of his contemporaries; but he does not look
down on them, but above himself. What he does is
great, but he still feels that greatness has a spirit
which is ever mounting — that rests on no summit
within mortal view, but soars again and again in
search of an ideal height on which to pause and fold
its wings."

Gainsborough was the most formidable rival of
Reynolds. Whether he felt it hopeless to make use

X

3o6

ON PORTRAIT

of Sir Joshua's weapons, or whether his peculiar taste
led him to the choice of other means, he adopted a
system of chiaroscuro, of more frequent occurrence
in Nature than those extremes of light and dark
which Reynolds managed with such consummate
judgment. His range in portrait was more limited,
but within that range he is at times so delightful that
we should not feel inclined to exchange a head by
him for a head of the same person by Sir Joshua.
His men are as thoroughly gentlemen, and his women
as entirely ladies, nor had Reynolds a truer feeling of
the charms of infancy. Indeed his cottage children
are more interesting because more natural than the

Robinettas " and "Muscipulas" of his illustrious
rival, the only class of pictures by Reynolds in which
mannerism in expression and attitude obtrudes itself
in the place of what is natural. Gainsborough's
barefoot child on her way to the well, with her little
dog under her arm, is unequalled by anything of the
kind in the world. I recollect it at the British
Gallery, forming part of a very noble assemblage of
pictures, and I could scarcely look at or think of
anything else in the rooms. This inimitable work is
a portrait, and not of a peasant child, but of a young
lady, who appears also in his picture of the girl and
pigs, which Sir Joshua purchased.

That Reynolds and Gainsborough were not on
terms of friendship seems to have been the fault of
the latter, v.ho, with all his excellent qualities, had
not so equal a temper as Sir Joshua. Reynolds did
not, as Allan Cunningham intimates, wait till the
death of Gainsborough to do justice to his genius.

ON PORTRAIT

307

The brief allusion to their last interview in his four-
teenth discourse, which is as modest as it is touching,
proves that he had not done so ; and it seems clear
that Sir Joshua would have told much more had it
not been to his own honour, and that he has only
said what he felt necessary for the removal of any
charge of injustice on his part.

The powers of Gainsborough, in portrait, may be
well estimated by that charming picture in the
Dulwich Gallery, of "Mrs. Sheridan and Mrs.
Tickell \ " and the whole-lengths at Hampton Court,
of "Colonel St. Leger," and "Fisher the Composer."

A painter may have great ability, and yet be in-
ferior to those of whom I have spoken. Sir Thomas
Lawrence was perhaps hindered from rising to the
highest rank as a colourist by his early and first
practice of making portraits in colourless chalk only.
His wish to please the sitter made him yield more
than his EngHsh predecessors had done to the foolish
desire of most people to be painted with a smile :
though he was far from extending this indulgence to
that extreme of a self-satisfied simper that the French
painters of the age preceding his had introduced to
portrait. Of indefatigable industry, Lawrence's habit
of undertaking too many pictures at the same time
was a serious drawback, in many cases, to their
excellence. He began the portraits of children which
he did not finish till they were grown up, and of
gentlemen and ladies while their hair was of its first
colour, but which remained incomplete in his rooms
till the originals were gray. The most beautiful of
his female heads, and beautiful it is, is the one he

3o8

ON PORTRAIT

painted of Lady Elizabeth Leveson Gower (afterwards
Marchioness of Westminster). This was begun and
finished off-hand ; and so was the best male head he
ever painted, his first portrait of Mr. West, not the
whole-length in the National Gallery, in which he has
much exaggerated the stature of the original. He
took especial delight in painting the venerable and
amiable President, who offered a remarkable instance
of what has been described in another section, the
increase of beauty in old age, and of whom this por-
trait is a work of great excellence.

Without any of those peculiar blandishments of
manner, either as a painter or a man, that contributed
to make Lawrence the most popular portrait-painter of
his time, Jackson was more of an artist ; much truer
in colour, and, indeed, in this respect approaching to
Reynolds, whose pictures he sometimes copied so
closely as to deceive even Northcote. When his sitters
were ordinary people, his portraits were often ordinary
works; but when they were notable persons, he
exerted all his powers. The portrait he painted of
Canova, for Chantrey, is in all respects superior to
that which Lawrence painted of the great sculptor ;
more natural, more manly, and much finer in effect.
His heads of Sir John Franklin (painted for Mr.
Murray), of Flaxman, of Stothard, and of Liston, are
all admirably characteristic, and among the finest
portraits of the British school; and I remember
seeing at Castle Howard his half-length of Northcote
hanging in company with Vandyke's half-length of
Snyders, and a magnificent head of a Jew Rabbi, by
Rembrandt, and well sustaining so trying a position.

ON PORTRAIT

309

Perfectly amiable in his nature, nothing pleased Jack-
son more than opportunities of recommending young
painters of merit to patronage ; and he introduced
Wilkie and Haydon to Lord Mulgrave and Sir George
Beaumont. With strong natural sense, playful in his
manner, and with a true relish of humour, Jackson
was a great favourite with all who had the happiness
to know him, and his loss, by an early death, was
irreparable to his friends, and a very great one to Art.

The many advantages in many ways, resulting
from Photography, are yet but imperfectly appre-
ciated; for its improvements have followed each
other so rapidly, that we cannot but expect many
more, and are quite in the dark as to what may be
its next wonder. In its present state it confirms
what has always been felt by the best artists and the
best critics, that facsimile is not that species of re-
semblance to Nature, even in a portrait, that is most
agreeable : for while the best calotypes remind us of
mezzotint engravings from Velasquez, Rembrandt, or
Reynolds, they are still inferior in general effect to
such engravings : and they thus help to show that
the ideal is equally a principle of portrait-painting as
of all other Art ; and that not only does this consist
in the best view of the face, the best light and
shadow, and the most characteristic attitude of the
figure, for all these may be selected for a photo-
graphic picture, but that the ideal of a portrait, like
the ideal of all Art, depends on something which can
only be communicated by the mind, through the
hand and eye, and without any other mechanical
intervention than that of the pencil. Photography

X2

ON PORTRAIT

may tend to relax the industry of inferior painters,
but it may be hoped and reasonably expected that it
will stimulate the exertions of the best; for much
may be learnt from it if used as a means of becoming
better acquainted with the beauties of Nature, but
nothing if resorted to only as a substitute for labour.
I have alluded to its value in enabling artists to
possess facsimiles of expensive engravings.

CONCLUSION

In taking leave of the reader, and supposing that I
am addressing a young painter, I have a few more
things to say, in the way of counsel.

When you begin to tire of your work, leave off;
otherwise you will probably injure it — you will
certainly injure yourself. I think it was Reynolds
who said, " Do not be seen out of your painting-room
in the daytime." But there is as much to be learned
in our walks, as in our houses, and more health to be
gained. Reynolds lost his sight and shortened his
days by over-confinement, while Stothard preserved
his health and lengthened his life by daily walks. To
those who are ready to take advantage of any excuse
for quitting their work, neither this nor anything I
have to say is addressed. But I imagine you to be
one whose eyes are always and everywhere employed ;
one on whom nothing that offers itself to notice is
ever lost ; one with whom the study of all Nature and
of all Art is a labour of love ; — and if you are not
such a one, give up all thoughts of becoming a
painter. "He," says Mr. Ruskin, "draws nothing
well who thirsts not to draw everything."

Never destroy your designs, or your sketches from
Nature. Though you may (at the moment) be dis-

312

CONCLUSION

satisfied, a time will come when you will see them
with other eyes, and discover how they may be turned
to good account. With respect to your sketches,
whether they be from Nature or designs for pictures,
you will often find in them beauties that you cannot
imitate when you attempt to finish. The usual reason
given for the attractiveness of a sketch is, that the
imagination fills it up more satisfactorily than the
pencil ever can. There is something in this, but it
is far from accounting for all the pleasure w^e derive
from masterly sketches. Facility and ease of execu-
tion are, in themselves, attractive, but these are lesser
matters; there is often 2ione-ness of effect, and a beauty
and truth of colour, in a sketch, that are apt to be
lost in the elaboration and timidity of finish ; — and
indeed I have noticed that the sketches of some
painters have always more of true finish than their
pictures, because they have more of those essentials
to finish, unity and breadth. A student, to whom Sir
Joshua Reynolds showed a fine picture by Poussin,
pointed to a part that he thought bad. " No," said
the President, "if it had been better, it had been
worse." This seemed to the young man paradoxical ;
but I have no doubt Reynolds was right, and knew
that what appeared desirable to the questioner (in all
probability more of what he considered finish) would
injure the picture.

It is not the length of time spent in study that is to
make a painter of you, but how you spend that time.
Try to keep in mind the greatest things, and secure
these first. Some young painters waste that time in
the study of costume that should be spent in the

CONCLUSION

313

study of Nature. — But remember that incorrectness
in costume is not fatal, and, indeed, entire accuracy
in this is impossible of attainment, excepting in sub-
jects contemporary with the artist ; but incorrectness
of form, errors in perspective, and defective colour,
are the things for which you will deservedly be brought
to strict account. Haydon tells us that he resumed
the study of the Greek language with the notion that
it would enable him to paint the better from Homer.
But he had the sense to discover that a sacrifice of
time was too great, which, though it might possibly
have made his pictures more Homeric, would cer-
tainly have made them less excellent in the qualities
of Art, which he must have neglected, while engaged
in the study of a language, Fuseli, it is true, was a
scholar, and a good one, as well as a great painter.
But his father and his earliest associates were literary
men; and he was destined for the Church, sent to
college, took orders, and preached, before he became
a painter, though he had always wished to be one.
Possibly he might have attained many of the things
which (as an artist) he lacked, had he engaged in
the profession sooner ; — but, at any rate, his literary
studies never interfered with his prosecution of Art,
after he had determined on quitting the Church.

It is the happiness of a genuine painter that he is
all his life a student. If the education of such a one
could ever be finished, his Art would become little
else than a mechanical routine exercise of the pencil,
and he would sink into that large class who are dex-
terous in everything, and great in nothing. You
may, by attending to all the common rules, become

314

CONCLUSION

one of this class, and you may also (in this class)
grow richer than you have the chance of becoming
while your mind is fixed on that high standard of
excellence that the few only have reached. Make
your election. But, if you have genius, it was made
unconsciously in favour of the highest possible excel-
lence, when you first gave up your mind to Painting,
a time of life, perhaps, as early as your earliest recol-
lections.

But though the education of a true painter is
always going on, there is a time when he may
be said to have taken a degree in Art. Do not
before that time leave England, — do not leave
London, where all the best British artists have
received the most valuable portion of their education.
London contains every means that can assist the
development of a painter's powers in whatever class
of subjects he may be formed to excel ; and as I have
said in another page, an artist is always the better for
being national. Travel as much as you please when
you can call yourself a painter, for the more know-
ledge you take with you, doubly and trebly the more
will you bring back. But remember that it is with
the mind as with the body — both may be injured
by too much food, and the health and strength of
both are only promoted by moderate quantities, well
digested.

Beware of over-fastidiousness. I have known
painters, of great delicacy of mind, in whom the diffi-
culty of pleasing themselves has at last become a
disease, that retarded, or prevented altogether, the
completion of really beautiful works. Never leave

CONCLUSION

315

anything unaltered that you are tolerably sure of
improving; but the propensity to alter may be
indulged (if indeed it can be called an indulgence)
much too far.

And now to conclude the conclusion. I must beg
pardon of the reader if, as I fear, I have too often
repeated opinions that seem to me important. I have
reiterated passages, containing principles that I wished
should not by any chance escape the reader, and that
even if they had not escaped, should be again impressed
on him. I am not so vain as to connect the name
of Charles Fox with my own, excepting with reference
to what his friends considered a fault in his speeches,
a habit of repeating his sentences, and for which he
gave two reasons. "I do it," he said, "because I
may not have been heard, and because I may have
been heard."

P tinted by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh,